Story Based Question
You’ve just uploaded a stunning image of a hiking trail to your blog about outdoor adventures, but you’re not sure if you’ve optimized it correctly for SEO. You know images are crucial for engagement, but what about the behind-the-scenes stuff? Is there a way to make sure that Google understands exactly what your image represents? After some research, you come across the term alt text. You start wondering: What is alt text, and why is it so important for Image SEO?
Exact Answer
Alt text (alternative text) is a short description of an image used by search engines to understand its content. It improves image search rankings, boosts accessibility for users with disabilities, and enhances overall SEO by making your content more discoverable.
Explanation
Alt text is one of the most important aspects of Image SEO. It’s a simple but powerful tool that serves several critical purposes:
- Helps Search Engines Understand Your Images
Google can’t “see” images, so it relies on alt text to understand what an image is about. This description is crucial for indexing and ranking your images in search results. Without proper alt text, search engines might not know what your image is related to, making it harder for you to rank well.- For instance, if you’re posting an image of a snowy mountain for a winter hiking blog, using alt text like “snowy-mountain-hiking-trail” is more helpful to search engines than leaving it blank or using “IMG_4567.jpg.”
- Improves Image Search Rankings
Alt text plays a role in how your images appear in Google Image Search. When users search for images, Google pulls results based on image file names, alt text, and other signals. Using relevant keywords in your alt text can improve the visibility of your images in image search results, driving more traffic to your website.- Let’s say someone searches for “mountain hiking trail.” If your image is named “mountain-hiking-trail.jpg” with alt text like “rocky-mountain-hiking-trail,” you’ll have a higher chance of showing up in the search results for that query.
- Enhances Accessibility for Users with Disabilities
Alt text also helps make your site more accessible, especially for users who rely on screen readers due to visual impairments. These tools read the alt text aloud to help users understand the image. By adding descriptive alt text, you’re ensuring that your content is accessible to everyone, which is also a positive ranking factor for SEO.- For example, if you have a photo of a beautiful sunset, instead of leaving the alt text blank, use something like “orange-sunset-over-the-ocean” so screen readers can provide that information to users with visual impairments.
- Improves User Experience
Sometimes images fail to load, and when this happens, users will see the alt text in place of the image. Clear, descriptive alt text can help users understand the context of the image even when it’s not displayed.- If you have a broken image link for a “sunset over mountains” image, alt text like “sunset-mountains-hiking-trail” gives users a good idea of what they were expecting to see.
- Boosts Overall SEO
Alt text contributes to the overall SEO of your page. When you add descriptive alt text, you’re adding context to your content, making it more relevant to the search queries you want to rank for. Google uses this additional information to better understand the relationship between your images and the rest of your content.- For example, if your blog post is about hiking, and you include a relevant image with alt text like “mountain-hiking-trail-with-sunrise,” Google can more easily relate the image to the text in your post, boosting the page’s relevancy for keywords related to hiking and mountains.
Example
Let’s say you’re running a travel blog, and you’ve written a post about the best summer hiking trails in the US. You’ve uploaded a photo of a trail in the Rockies. Here’s how to optimize it with alt text:
- Image file name: “rocky-mountain-hiking-trail.jpg”
- Alt text: “rocky-mountain-hiking-trail-summer-view”
With this, you’ve done a few things:
- Helped Google understand what the image is about.
- Optimized the image for image search (people searching for Rocky Mountain hikes will be more likely to find it).
- Made the image more accessible for screen reader users.
By using detailed, descriptive alt text, you’re setting up the image (and your content) to rank better in both traditional and image-based search results, helping more users find your page.