What is alt text for images? A Quick Guide to Accessibility and SEO

Right, let's talk about something that sounds a bit techy but is actually incredibly important for your website: alt text. Put simply, it’s a short, written description you add to an image’s code. Think of it as a hidden label.

This little piece of text is a powerhouse for both accessibility and SEO, but it’s often overlooked. Getting it right can make a world of difference.

What Is Alt Text for Images and Why Does It Matter?

Have you ever tried to describe a picture to someone over the phone? That’s exactly what alt text does. It’s a behind-the-scenes description that gives meaning to your images when they can’t be seen.

To get a quick overview, here’s a simple breakdown of what alt text is all about.

What Is Alt Text for Images At a Glance

Element	Description
What it is	A short, written description of an image embedded in your website's code.
Primary Purpose	To make images accessible to people with visual impairments who use screen readers.
Secondary Purpose	To tell search engines like Google what an image is about, which helps with SEO.
Who it helps	People using screen readers, search engine bots, and any user if an image fails to load.

This table gives you the basics, but the real impact of alt text goes much deeper. It’s all about creating a better, more inclusive experience online.

A Bridge for Both Humans and Search Engines

So, who are you writing this for? Primarily, two groups. First, people with visual impairments. In the UK alone, there are over two million people living with sight loss, many of whom depend on screen readers to browse the web. Alt text gives your images a voice, turning a visual-only experience into one they can understand and engage with.

Second, you're writing for search engines. The "bots" or "crawlers" that Google sends out can't see pictures like we do. They read code. Your alt text is a clear label that tells them what your image shows and why it’s relevant to the rest of the page.

For your UK small business, this isn't just a "nice-to-have" feature; it's a game-changer. Ignoring alt text leaves a massive, frustrating gap for a huge part of your potential audience and can even pose legal risks under regulations like the UK's Equality Act 2010.

When an image lacks alt text, a screen reader may read out a confusing file name (e.g., "IMG_8021.jpeg") or simply say "image," leaving the user without any context. This creates a barrier, preventing them from fully understanding your content and message.

Proper alt text is the bridge over that gap. It shows you care about creating a complete and welcoming experience for everyone, which builds tremendous trust and goodwill. If you’d like to dig deeper into this, you can explore our other articles on website accessibility tips.

The SEO Advantage You Cannot Ignore

Beyond the crucial accessibility benefits, alt text is a fantastic tool for getting your website noticed. By giving Google clear, descriptive information about your images, you unlock some serious SEO perks:

• Improved Keyword Relevance: It’s another spot to naturally include your target keywords, reinforcing to Google what your page is all about. Don’t stuff them in, though! Make it natural.

• Ranking in Image Search: This is a big one. Well-described images can show up in Google Images search, opening up a whole new way for customers to find you.

• Better Contextual Understanding: Google looks at the entire page to figure out its topic. Descriptive alt text helps it connect your images to your text, which strengthens your page's overall authority.

So, don't think of it as a tedious chore. See it as a strategic move. Every time you write thoughtful alt text, you're building connections, making your site more visible, and helping your business grow.

How Alt Text Supercharges Accessibility and SEO

Alt text is one of those small details that packs a massive punch. It’s a simple bit of text that does two crucial jobs at once: it makes your website welcoming to everyone, and it gives your SEO a serious boost.

By getting this right, you’re not just trying to impress Google; you’re opening your digital doors to a much wider audience. Let's break down how this one little piece of text pulls off so much.

The Voice of Your Images for Accessibility

Imagine browsing a website with your eyes closed. That’s what it’s like for someone with a visual impairment using a screen reader. The software reads out all the text, links, and headings, turning the visual web into an audible experience.

But what happens when it gets to an image? That's where alt text comes in. If it’s there, the screen reader reads it out, painting a picture with words. If it’s missing, your beautiful images become silent, frustrating gaps in the conversation.

Think of it this way: a website without alt text is like a book with entire pages ripped out. The main story might be there, but crucial details and context are lost, creating a confusing and exclusionary experience for the reader.

This isn't just about being nice, either; it has real-world consequences. Did you know that in the UK, failing to add proper alt text can land your business in legal hot water? Staggeringly, 55.5% of website images are missing alt text. This mistake contributes to an estimated £120 billion lost every year by UK businesses because their e-commerce sites are inaccessible. A whopping 73% of disabled users will simply abandon a purchase if the site is a hassle to use.

For Wix websites we design here at Baslon Digital in London, adding alt text is a non-negotiable step to comply with the UK's Equality Act 2010.

A Guide for Google and Your SEO

Search engines like Google are clever, but they can't see images like we do. They rely on text to figure out what a page is all about, and your alt text is a direct line of communication to them.

When Google reads your alt text, it understands what your image shows and, just as importantly, how it relates to the rest of your content. This connection is gold for your site’s search engine optimisation (SEO).

Here’s how good alt text gives your SEO a leg-up:

• Contextual Relevance: It confirms to Google that your images aren't just decorative fluff; they actually support your page's main topic. This boosts your authority.

• Image Search Traffic: Well-written alt text is a major ranking factor for Google Images. This opens up a whole new way for potential customers to find you visually.

• Topical Authority: When your text, headings, and image descriptions are all singing from the same hymn sheet, it signals to Google that you’re a comprehensive, trustworthy resource.

At the end of the day, every bit of alt text you write helps build a stronger SEO foundation. To make sure your alt text is working as hard as it should be, it's worth considering professional website SEO audit services.

Optimising your images is a fundamental part of good SEO hygiene. For a deeper dive, read also: our comprehensive articles on SEO for images.

How to Write Perfect Alt Text Every Time

Writing good alt text isn't some mystical dark art; it's a knack. Once you get the hang of it, it becomes second nature. The real trick is to stop thinking of it as a tedious chore and start seeing it for what it is: a brilliant opportunity to be clearer, more helpful, and a bit clever with your SEO.

The perfect bit of alt text gives both people and search engines the context they desperately need. It should be specific enough to be genuinely useful but short enough that it doesn’t drone on. Let’s get you a framework that you can use every single time.

The Core Principles of Great Alt Text

Before we jump into the nitty-gritty examples, let's lay down some simple ground rules. The best alt text always strikes a fine balance between being descriptive, specific, and concise. Your main goal is to capture the image’s content and, most importantly, its purpose in as few words as possible.

Take a moment and ask yourself: why is this image even here? Is it showing off a product? Putting a face to a name? Explaining a complicated idea? The reason the image exists on the page should be the North Star guiding your description.

To make this dead simple, here’s a quick-reference guide on what to do and what to avoid at all costs.

Quick Guide to Writing Effective Alt Text

Getting this right is easier than you think. Stick to these simple rules, and you'll be well on your way.

Do ✅	Don't ❌
Be specific and descriptive in your descriptions. Tell the user what's actually there.	Never start with "image of" or "picture of". Screen readers already announce it’s an image, so it’s just redundant clutter.
Keep it concise—aim for under 125 characters if you can.	Don't stuff keywords unnaturally. Write for a human first, and the SEO boost will come naturally. It's so obvious when you do it!
Explain the purpose and context of the image. Why is it on this page?	Don't use alt text for purely decorative images. For these, you use an empty alt attribute () instead. More on that below.
Write unique descriptions for every single image.	Never leave the alt text field blank. This can cause screen readers to read out the long, gobbledegook file name, which is just awful for users.

Just following these simple guidelines will put you miles ahead of most of your competitors. So many businesses either completely ignore alt text or get it spectacularly wrong, missing out on massive accessibility and SEO wins.

Practical Examples From Bad to Good

Theory is all well and good, but seeing alt text in the wild is where the lesson really sinks in. Let's walk through a few common scenarios for a small business and turn some truly awful examples into something genuinely powerful.

1. The E-commerce Product Photo

Let's imagine you run a lovely online shop selling handmade leather goods. You’ve just uploaded a snap of your best-selling wallet.

• Bad: (Way too vague. What kind of wallet? It offers zero useful detail.)

• Worse: (This is just a cringeworthy list of keywords. It sounds like a robot wrote it.)

• Good:

See the difference? The "Good" example is perfect because it describes the product's key features, its colour, and its style. It helps a visually impaired customer understand exactly what you're selling and helps Google correctly categorise your product. Win-win.

2. The Staff Headshot

Right, now let's think about your "About Us" page. You've got a professional headshot of your lead designer, Sarah Jones.

Crucial Insight: The context of a headshot really matters. Is it on a team page? Is it a byline for a blog post she wrote? Your alt text needs to reflect its purpose in that specific spot.

• Bad: (Sarah who? What's her role here?)

• Worse: (Generic, cold, and utterly unhelpful.)

• Good:

This "Good" example is spot-on. It identifies the person, states their professional role, and even adds a little detail that conveys a friendly, approachable personality. It connects a name to a face and a title, which is precisely the job of a staff photo.

3. The Decorative Image

Sometimes, an image is just there to look pretty. It might be a subtle background texture, an abstract shape, or a simple dividing line. These images don't add any new information; they're purely for aesthetics.

For these, you still need to add the alt attribute, but you must leave it empty.

• Correct Implementation:

Doing this tells screen readers to just skip over the image completely. If you simply leave out the alt attribute altogether, the screen reader might try to read out the file name (e.g., ), creating a jarring and confusing experience for the user. An empty alt attribute ensures a smooth, seamless journey.

By getting a handle on these different scenarios, you can make sure every single image on your website is pulling its weight for your business.

Need a hand making sure your entire site is optimised and working as hard as it can? Our team at Baslon Digital specialises in creating beautiful, accessible, and high-performing Wix websites. Contact us today to learn more.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Adding Alt Text in Wix

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW8JiDJ1uDA

Alright, so you know what good alt text looks like. Now for the nuts and bolts: where do you actually put it?

Fortunately, Wix doesn't make you jump through hoops for this. Whether you're using the classic Wix Editor or the newer Wix Studio, the process is pretty painless. Let's walk through exactly where to click to get this done.

Adding Alt Text to Single Images in the Wix Editor

This is the one you’ll be doing most often. Think of the standard images sprinkled across your homepage, your ‘About Us’ page, or inside your blog posts. It’s a simple job that takes just a few seconds once you know where to look.

Here’s the drill:

1. In the Wix Editor, click on the image you want to work on.

2. A small menu pops up. Click the Settings icon (the little cogwheel).

3. A panel will slide open on the right-hand side of your screen.

4. Scroll down this panel until you spot the section that says, "What's in the image? Tell Google".

5. Type your perfectly crafted alt text into that box.

That’s it. Seriously. Wix saves your changes automatically, so you don’t need to hunt for a save button. Just remember to publish your site to make your updates live for the world to see.

The screenshot below points you right to the spot. No guesswork needed.

See how the field is labelled to remind you it’s for Google? A neat little nudge about its dual role in accessibility and SEO.

Updating Alt Text for Wix Store Products

If you’re running an online shop, your product images are everything. Getting the alt text right here is non-negotiable—it helps shoppers who can't see the image and gets your products noticed in Google Images.

• From your site’s Dashboard, head over to Store Products.

• Choose the product you need to edit.

• Scroll down the page to the Product Images & Videos area.

• Hover your mouse over an image and click the little Edit icon (it looks like a pencil).

• A pop-up window will appear with a field for Alt Text.

• Pop your description in there and click Done.

Make sure to do this for every single product image. A detailed description like "Handmade ceramic coffee mug with blue speckled glaze" is infinitely more helpful than just "mug." If you’re looking to get more out of your site, you might find our other guides on the Wix Editor useful.

Managing Alt Text in Wix Galleries

Galleries are brilliant for showing off portfolios, events, or product ranges. The process here is a little different, as you can manage all the images from one central spot instead of clicking around your page.

Pro-Tip: Dealing with gallery images this way is a huge time-saver. You can power through your entire collection in a list, making sure nothing gets missed.

1. Click on the gallery itself and choose Manage Media.

2. A new window will open, showing every image in that gallery.

3. Select an image from the list on the left.

4. On the right, you’ll see fields for a Title and a Description. For a Wix Gallery, it’s the Description field that doubles as your alt text.

5. Write your descriptive text in the Description box. Wix will automatically use this as the alt attribute.

Forgetting alt text is a surprisingly common blunder. A WebAIM study found that a staggering 18.5% of all images on the web are missing it. Worse, 44% of images that are also links—which are crucial for navigation—don't have alt text. For someone using a screen reader, that’s a dead end. You can dig into the stats yourself by checking out the full report.

By taking a few moments to fill in these boxes in Wix, you’re not just ticking a box for SEO. You’re actively fixing a widespread problem and making the web a little more welcoming for everyone.

Ready to make sure your website is firing on all cylinders? Contact Baslon Digital for a professional website audit or a custom design that truly performs.

Right, you know what alt text is and why it matters. But knowing the rules is one thing; consistently avoiding the common slip-ups is a completely different ball game. It’s surprisingly easy to fall into bad habits, scribbling down vague descriptions or getting lost in details that just don't matter.

Every little mistake is a missed opportunity. Think about it—you're either failing to help someone understand your site or you're missing a trick with your SEO. A lot of people just assume that typing anything into that little alt text box is job done.

But here’s a reality check. Shockingly, 13.4% of images that even have alt text are filled with questionable or downright useless content, like repeated phrases or just the image filename. That means a huge number of websites are failing a basic accessibility check, even when they think they're trying. You can read more of the eye-opening stats on the We Are Tenet blog.

So, let's look at the most common blunders and, more importantly, how to sort them out. Time to turn those fumbles into wins.

Mistake 1: Being Far Too Vague

This one is the absolute classic. A one-word description tells your users next to nothing and gives search engines zero clues. It’s just plain lazy.

• Bad Example:

• Why It Fails: Whose team? What are they doing? Where are they? This leaves everyone, including Google, completely in the dark.

• How to Fix It:

See the difference? The corrected version gives you the specifics. It tells you the number of people, what they do, and where they are, painting a clear picture for anyone who can't see the image. Much better.

Mistake 2: Letting the Robots Take Over

AI tools can be a decent starting point for drafting alt text, but you should never, ever let them have the final say. An AI has no real-world context; it can easily misread an image or completely miss the whole point of why it's there on your page.

• AI-Generated Example:

• Why It Fails: Well, yes, it’s technically correct. But it’s as bland as unseasoned porridge. It misses the marketing message and does nothing to show off your brand's personality.

• How to Fix It (Human-Edited):

That human touch adds the crucial flavour—it identifies the specific team, what they're doing, and hints at a positive company culture. Always, always review and tweak what the AI spits out to make sure it actually serves your purpose.

Crucial Insight: An AI might describe a photo of a cake as "a baked dessert with frosting." A human, on the other hand, knows it’s a "custom-designed three-tier wedding cake with lemon buttercream"—a distinction that could make or break a sale for a bakery.

Mistake 3: Keyword Stuffing

Oh, the temptation to cram every keyword you can think of into your alt text. Please, resist! This is an ancient, creaky SEO tactic that creates a dreadful experience for anyone using a screen reader and can actually get you on Google’s naughty list.

• Bad Example:

• Why It Fails: This is just a garbled mess of words, not a description. Imagine having that read out to you. It’s annoying for users and screams "low-quality" to search engines.

• How to Fix It:

The right way weaves your important terms ("Wix expert," "London," "small business," "SEO") into a sentence that actually makes sense. The golden rule? Write for humans first, always.

By having a quick audit of your own website for these common mistakes, you can give both your user experience and your search rankings a serious boost. Ready to take your site from good to great? The expert team at Baslon Digital can help make sure your site is not just beautiful, but accessible and perfectly optimised too.

Your Essential Alt Text Checklist and Template

Alright, I get it. You’re a busy business owner, and you just want to get this right without spending hours on every single image. Think of this as your go-to cheat sheet to make sure every picture you upload is doing its job for both accessibility and SEO.

I've put together a dead-simple checklist and a fill-in-the-blanks template to make writing good alt text a quick, no-brainer part of your routine. The goal is to get it done right, fast, so no image gets left behind.

To help you see what not to do, the guide below flags three of the most common alt text blunders I see all the time.

This just shows how easily alt text can become useless through vagueness, cramming in keywords, or letting an AI go wild without a human to check its work.

Your Quick Alt Text Checklist

Before you hit publish, just mentally tick off these questions for every image. Honestly, it'll take you seconds and will make your alt text infinitely better.

• Why is this image here? What's its purpose? Is it showing off a product, introducing your team, or explaining a tricky concept?

• What's the one key takeaway? If the image vanished, what critical information would someone miss? That’s what you need to write.

• Is it short and sharp? Can you get the point across in under 125 characters? Be ruthless.

• Does it sound human? Read it out loud. If it sounds like a robot trying to game Google, rewrite it.

A Simple Alt Text Writing Template

If you prefer a more structured approach, here’s a simple formula to build solid, descriptive alt text every single time. It helps you cover all the important bits without overthinking it.

Formula:

This little framework forces you to describe the main focus, what’s happening, and any useful background details.

Let’s put it into practice with a few examples:

• Product Image:

• Team Photo:

• Action Shot:

Using a template like this takes all the guesswork out of it. You can write effective descriptions that actually help your accessibility and SEO, without it slowing you down.

Feeling like your whole website could do with a professional once-over? The experts at Baslon Digital can run a full audit to find and fix all the little gremlins holding your site back.

Your Top Alt Text Questions, Answered

As you start getting the hang of alt text, you’ll probably find a few questions popping into your head. It’s completely normal! To save you the head-scratching, we’ve put together some quick, no-nonsense answers to the queries we hear most from small business owners just like you.

Is Alt Text the Same as an Image Title or Caption?

Nope, not at all! Think of them as three different tools for three different jobs. It’s easy to get them mixed up, but here’s the simple breakdown:

• Alt Text: This is the big one. It's a description hidden in the code for screen readers and search engines. It only ever shows up if an image breaks, or it’s read aloud to someone who can't see the screen.

• Image Title: This is that little pop-up text you sometimes see when you hover your mouse over an image. It’s a nice little extra, but it’s not essential for accessibility or your SEO.

• Caption: This is the text you can actually see on the page, usually right below an image. It’s there for everyone, providing extra context or giving credit where it’s due.

When it comes to accessibility and SEO, alt text is the one you absolutely must get right.

Do Decorative Images Need Alt Text?

This is a fantastic question. If an image is just there to look pretty—like a background pattern, an abstract swirl, or a simple dividing line—it doesn't need a description. After all, it’s not adding any real information.

But, and this is important, you can't just leave the alt text field blank. You have to tell screen readers that the image is decorative by using what's called an empty alt attribute (). This simple bit of code tells the software to skip right over it, preventing it from confusing the user by reading out a random file name like "blue-line-divider.png".

The rule of thumb is simple: if an image doesn't add any real information, it's decorative. If someone would miss out on context by not seeing it, then it needs proper, descriptive alt text.

Can Good Alt Text Really Improve My Google Ranking?

Yes, it really can! While it might not be the single magic key to getting the number one spot, it's a vital part of your overall SEO strategy. Think of it as a helpful supporting actor.

Good alt text gives Google a much clearer picture of what your images and your page are about. This helps you in two brilliant ways. First, it gives your images a fighting chance to show up in Google Image Search, opening up a whole new path for customers to find you. Second, by reinforcing the main topics on your page, it helps convince Google that your content is relevant and authoritative, which can give your rankings a nice little boost.

---

Ready to ensure your entire website is fully optimised and accessible? The experts at Baslon Digital can perform a professional website audit or create a custom Wix design that gets real results. Contact us today to learn more.