Why Alt Important Text: Increase Accessibility and SEO

The internet is a visual treasure, filled with inspiration and information. Images are what interesting us, keeps us involved, and helps us learn, and create. But imagine the internet without visual cues – avoiding it will be a real challenge.

Fortunately, for people with visual disorders, those who deal with a slower internet connection, and even robots that give power to search engines, there are simple but strong solutions: Alt text (short text of alternative texts). This unsung hero from the digital world ensures that everyone can access and benefit from images that we often underestimate.

What is Alt text?

Alt text exactly what it feels like – the description of the image that appears on the page. Simple, right? But there is more than that. To write a correct Alt text -really effective, it is important to understand why it is important, when an image requires ALT attributes (Spoiler Warning: Not every picture does it!), And the best tool to help you ensure your images are closed. Let’s dominate and make your Alt text functions smarter, not more difficult!

Why Alt Text is Important

Alt text is not just a box to be checked – this is a strong attribute that serves two important goals: Creating your content inclusive and helps search engines understand your images.

Accessibility

Alt Text gives a written description of images for those who rely on screen readers or encounter problems loading images. It was there to ensure that no matter the barrier is good, a visual disorder or a low-content bandwidth connection you can still be accessed and meaningful for all users.

Without the right ALT text, you are at risk not only to make your site inaccessible by visitors but also has the potential to violate accessibility such as American With Disabilities Act (ADA), which can result in fines or other legal consequences. Similar laws were found in all European Unions, Canada, the Republic of Korea, and Australia – only for a few names. If you try to create a case for a fair online experience for your team, this is the right place to start.

Want to learn more about building an inclusive online community? Here are some resources to start:

Optimization of search engines (SEO)

The search engine crewers attract some key details of the image, including file names, text, titles, and text ALT. Among other things, ALT text is the most important to help search engine understand the subject of the image in the entire page content. This information functions in addition to other content on the page to increase search engine algorithms, increase your ranking, and direct more traffic to your site.

When writing Alt text, aims for a clear and meaningful description that is naturally appropriate with page content. Combining key words cheerfully, and the most definitely holds the desire to overdo it – Keywords not only interfere with user experience but can also cause search engines to punish your site as spam.

Not accustomed to key words? Keyword filling is about cramming as many keywords as possible in an effort to increase ranking on search engine yield pages. This is not successful and often backfires. This is an example:

Keywords filled in Alt text:

alt=”Cute kitten playing with a ball of yarn, adorable kitten, fluffy kitten, playful kitten, cute kitten image, kitten for sale, kitten pictures.”

Alt text that is written well can increase accessibility and support your SEO strategy. Use your common sense and keep the site visitors (human) the top.

How to find out which picture requires alt text and how to write it

After all that, you might be surprised to know that not all images require Alt text. In fact, this is a tiring experience for some users with a screenreader to bear the fine Alt text that is applied to images that do not give any value. Luckily for us, W3 has categorized web images and offers some tips on how to treat images in each category.

This is how to write the right type of Alt text depending on what your image is:

Informative Image: This is the most common image found on the site and includes images, photos, or illustrations that represent concepts or information. Alt text you must give a brief description that conveys the essential meaning of the picture.

For example, this picture illustrates all integration available with P2 Automattic, but the integration is not mentioned in the accompanying content. It is important here that the ALT text provides information for visitors who may not be able to see or load images. It should look like this:

alt="Logos for available P2 integrations: Crowdsignal, Figma, Twitter, GitHub, YouTube, Vimeo, Google Calendar, and Loom"

Decorative images: If the picture is there to make it look good and not add important information, use the Alt zero attribute (Alt = “”). This tells the technology of helping to miss it.

Functional Image: If the image functions as a button or link, the Alt text must explain what it is doing – not what.

For example, the Alt text for the video icon might say “Watch this video about hibernation bees on Vimeo.”

Text image: If the image contains a text that can be read (such as a graph with a quote or logo), the ALT text must include the same words.

Complex Image: Charts, graphics, or diagrams require more detailed Alt texts to describe the data or information they present. You might even link to a longer description.

Image group: If some images work together to convey one idea, the ALT text for one of the images must cover all messages. A good example of this is a process of process for recipes or tutorials other ways that include steps.

Image map: For images with clicked areas, give ALT text that explains the overall purpose of the image, and include ALT texts for each part that can be clicked that explains where it leads.

Not sure how to categorize images? See Tutorial Figure W3 for help.

Although there is no official long guideline, it is generally advised to maintain the text of Alt below 140 characters. A longer description can be boring when read by a screen reader. Be descriptive, but still concise – this is not a place to be creative.

Tool to make sure your image includes Alt text

Chrome Accesship Report

Chrome accessibility report is an easy -to -use resource that is built directly to your browser, when you want to quickly test one page on your site.

Alt text tool

The Alt text tool from the Nerdpress team is a free, lightweight plugin that produces CSV files from the images used in your content, along with their Alt attributes.

After the scan is complete (very fast!), You can open the CSV file in the Spreadsheet application of your choice. There you can quickly identify images that have lost alt attributes and scan anything that might require some improvements. This file also includes a link to edit posts where images appear, making it fast and easy to update their Alt attributes.

Equating digital accessibility examiners

This WordPress Freemium plugin from Eqealize Digital goes beyond ALT text to ensure your site can be accessed by various visitors. If you and your team are committed to making your content accessible, this is a good source.

Equalize Digital also runs a Facebook group and hosts a monthly virtual meeting for developers, designers, and users of WordPress who are interested in learning more about creating accessed websites that can be used by people of all abilities.

Alt text may look like small details, but play a big role in making the internet more inclusive and user -friendly. By writing a wise descriptive Alt text, you not only increase accessibility – you also optimize your content for search engines and improve overall user experience. With the right approach and tools, adding ALT text can be an easy step towards a site that is more easily accessible and friendly SEO.

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