What is Image alt Text in SEO and Why They are Important?

The way you treat the images on your site determines how you rank in organic search results. If you make a few changes in the pictures on your website, you can test the effect by using a paid or free SERP rank tracker. The chances are that your rankings would have dropped or risen, based on the changes that you would have made.

Therefore, images influence the overall appearance of your site, which, in turn, determines how the search algorithm ranks the site. But there is an essential aspect of images on sites that are referred to as Image Alt Text. The following is a brief examination of its meaning and importance in SEO.

What is Image Alt Text?

Image alternative text is a series of words that are used to describe images on websites. The words are usually written in HTML code so that the crawling spiders can read them. Typically, the text describes what is contained in the images that are published on a website.

For example, if you run a blog on preparing smoothies and you have a post about the specific type of smoothies, then you may use alternative text for every image that is on the post. If you include an image of a simple smoothie in a glass, then you will have to provide alternative text that says what is in that image.

When a user points the cursor of the mouse on the image and hovers over it, the alternative text appears. Similarly, when the photos on the post do not load because of any reason, then the user can tell the details of the image by reading the alternative text.

Why is Image Alt Text Important?

First, the Image Alt Text functionality is necessary because it makes sites very accessible to everyone. Many reasons can make a site inaccessible. For example, a person who has visual challenges cannot see the images that are contained in the content. Also, some browsers deliberately block images in web content.

In such cases, for the person who is visiting your site to understand the content correctly, the person needs to know what is contained in the images. If you have excellent and highly descriptive alternative text, then you can help such users to visualize the images and understand your content.

Second, using this functionality dramatically improves your SEO performance. Nowadays, all common search engines look at various things before they settle on a specific ranking for every site. Some of the factors that influence your SEO performance include the kind of content that you have on your site and the level of user experience related to the website. If people find your site attractive and useful, this feedback translates typically into higher ranking over the course of time.

Although you can improve the user experience level of your site using various methods, one of the most common ones relates to how you arrange your images. If you use high-quality images that are related to your content, then you make it easy for people to use your site.

By using alternative text functionality, you can make your site more attractive and useful to the audience. Therefore, using the feature helps to improve the rating of sites.

From the discussion, the alternative text functionality is necessary to make it easy for people to understand your site. While using it, you need to write brief but accurate descriptions of the images that you use. Given that the descriptions are in HTML, the crawling spiders can easily access and read your descriptions.

By using the text, you help users understand the content of the images on your site without seeing the image. By so doing, you can effectively improve the SEO performance of your website.