By Hannah Kujawa
Digital Media Intern, Lessiter Media
hkujawa@lessitermedia.com
Are you using your image’s alt text efficiently?
Alt text is the written copy that appears in place of an image on a webpage if the image fails to load. While many marketers treat it as only an accessibility requirement, alt text is also a powerful way to boost SEO.
Semrush describes image SEO as “the process of optimizing images on your website so that your pages and images may rank more prominently in unpaid search engine results.” Alt text plays a key role in this by helping search engines understand what your images show and how they connect to the content around them.
The opportunity is bigger than you might think. According to HubSpot, almost 19% of Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) show images. This includes image packs, special results displayed as a horizontal row of image links, sometimes even in the #1 spot. If your alt text isn’t optimized, you could be missing out on valuable organic traffic.
Having descriptive, contextual alt text not only makes your content more inclusive, but helps improve visibility in image search and strengthens your page for search engine rankings.
Check out the infographic below for a quick guide on how to write alt text that works harder for both accessibility and SEO.
