Answered by
Oliver Hall
Image alt text, also known as "alt tags" or "alt descriptions," plays a crucial role in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). An alt tag is an HTML attribute applied to image tags to provide a text alternative for search engines. This helps search engines understand what an image is about, thus improving your site's SEO.
Alt text serves several key roles in SEO:
Enhances Accessibility: For visually impaired users who use screen readers, alt text provides a description of the image. Without alt text, these users would not be able to understand the context and content of the images on your website.
Boosts SEO Ranking: Search engines can't directly interpret images, but they can read alt text. By providing descriptive alt text, you signal the content of the image to the search engine, which can help boost your visibility in image searches.
Provides Context: When web images don't load, alt text will display instead. This gives the user context about what should have been there.
Adding alt text to your images is simple. Here's an example of how to do it in HTML:
<img src="image.jpg" alt="description of image">
In this example, 'description of image' would be replaced with a brief description of what the image represents.
Remember that the best alt texts are brief and descriptive. They should give enough information for search engines and people using screen readers to understand the image without being overly long or keyword-stuffed.