Alt text (alternative text) is basically your images’ wingman in the SEO world. Think of it as describing a picture to someone over the phone – you need to be clear, specific, and get to the point.
When you add alt text to images, you’re doing three important things: helping visually impaired users understand your content through screen readers, giving Google’s crawlers context about your images, and creating another opportunity to rank in image search results.
Here’s what makes good alt text:
- Be specific but concise (aim for under 125 characters)
- Include target keywords naturally (don’t force it)
- Describe the image accurately
- Skip phrases like “image of” or “picture of” – it’s redundant
Bad alt text: “seo image”
Good alt text: “on-page SEO process flowchart showing key optimization steps”
Pro tip: If an image is purely decorative (like a background pattern), you can leave the alt text empty (alt=””) to avoid cluttering screen readers with unnecessary information.