What is Alt text?
Alt text or alternative texts are textual content set for enhancing image searches as well as for breaking down content which has more chance of affecting the readability and value of the content.
Why Alt text is important?
Alternative texts are crucial to bringing harmony over the textual and visual content. You can’t simply write a clean paragraph and a clear image, because no thread of text connects these two content pieces. These kinds of texts are attachments over the images, which are found to be helpful for people with visual impairments and low vision.
When a page is stuck overloading images, alt texts are good at helping you spot the relation between the textual content and the unloaded image. It’s indexed by the search engine bots and attributes the value that follows after that.
These texts are generally written to provide a concise idea of content without letting anyone in their audience get denied access to that thread of text. Overall, alternative texts provide a context for the content we write and Google is at the forefront of ranking them in image-based searches.
Here is an example code of alt text:-
<img src=”pineapplecakestack.jpg” alt=”alt=A slice of square pineapple cake with pineapple pieces over a white plate”>
What are the best practices when adding alt text?
While adding an alt text, certain points have to be considered. They can be explained as follows:-
- Using Descriptive Alt Texts
Keep the texts descriptive in the sense that once read, the reader should have an actual idea of the content. Google can understand the text with its computer vision algorithms and improves accessibility for people so that it can actually consider while enhancing image searches. There’s no expected amount of words for an alt text and the description can be enhanced for a lot of clear-cut ideas. So write what also the images connect on the spot. You can also enhance your alternative texts by:-
- Avoid using redundant phrases.
- Stay away from stuffing keywords and use only suitable ones.
- Avoid Alt texts for decorative images
It’s a waste of time to add such text for a decorative image. In instances, there can be images that don’t need one. It’s better to use an empty alt attribute so that it can signal that readers with visual impairments can ignore it.
- Optimize using image SEO
You can optimize alt texts using image SEO. As Google has a keen interest in reading images, it reads every tiny detail or identity within the images. Some of the popular image SEO practices include:-
- Adding structured data for alt texts.
- Modern file formats allow detailed alt texts.