Knowing how to write good alt text is an essential skill for modern internet users, especially if you own your own website or share pictures on social media. Yet many people don’t understand what alt text is and why it is necessary.
What is Alt Text? Who is Alt Text For?
Alt text is text that describes an image for people who cannot see it. It is important for people with low or no vision who use screen-readers. Image descriptions are also useful for people with slow internet connections that struggle to load images.
The purpose of alt text is to convey the meaning of the image, not to explain every single detail.
Is Alt Text Legally Required?
In the United States, businesses open to the public are required to be accessible. Having alt text on your website is an easy way to make it much more accessible to people who use screen-readers. For more information, see the Americans with Disabilities Act website.
Alt Text Example 1
Good alt text: Two pigeons eating bread out of a person’s hand.
Bad alt text: ExampleImage.webp
Explanation: Alt text needs to describe the image in question. Simply saying “image” or listing the file name is useless.
Alt Text Example 2
Good alt text: A person painting garlic bulbs.
Bad alt text: garlic bulb painting art supplies paint brush artist
Explanation: Remember, alt text is image description aimed at human beings, not computers. “Keyword stuffing” is spammy and useless. It’s fine to use tags elsewhere in your posts, but not in the alt text!
Alt Text Example 3
Good alt text: Many people riding bicycles.
Bad alt text: Image of a street. There is a crowd of people riding bicycles. They are riding in different directions. Most of the people are wearing long sleeves. There are signs and lights in the background. There are also buildings, bushes and trees in the background.
Explanation: The bad alt text contains too many unnecessary details and sounds unnatural. Additionally, it is not necessary to say “image of.”
Things to Avoid:
- using the file name or just saying “image” “photo” or “picture” instead of an actual image description
- keyword stuffing
- overly long descriptions
- repetitiveness (saying “image of” or “picture of” etc)
How to Add Alt Text on Social Media
Nowadays, when you upload an image to social media, you will probably see an option that says something like “ALT” or “Add Alt Text.” Simply click on that and add your description.
How to Add Alt Text on a WordPress Site
When you upload an image to your WordPress site’s media library, there will be an option to add alt text. The alt text will then work anywhere you use that image on your website. There’s no need to enter it over and over again.
How to Insert Alt Text in HTML
Alt text is added to HTML with something called the “alt attribute.” Let’s say we wanted to add alt text to the pigeon photo from earlier in this article. In HTML, it would look like this:
<img src="ExampleImage.webp" alt="Two pigeons eating bread out of a person’s hand."> Can AI Write Alt Text?
There are some LLMs (“large language models”) aka AI (“artificial intelligence”) models which will attempt to write alt text, however, they are unreliable. They make overly long-winded descriptions. AI is also prone to making serious errors no human would make – for instance, referring to a bear cub as a puppy. There are also privacy and environmental concerns when it comes to AI. Therefore, it’s best to write it yourself.
Alt Text Resources
Need more help writing alt text? Try these websites:
