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Alt text that actually helps

Alt text is the description a screen reader speaks when it reaches an image. It is also the single most common accessibility failure on small-business websites, partly because it gets skipped, and partly because when it does get written, it gets written for a robot audience that does not exist. The person on the other end is just a person. Write for them.

The one question that produces good alt text

Ask: if I were reading this page aloud to someone on the phone, what would I say when I got to this image? You would not say "image of image123.jpg". You would not recite keywords. You would say something like "there's a photo of the finished deck here, composite boards with a built-in bench along the railing". That sentence, trimmed, is your alt text: "Finished composite deck with a built-in bench along the railing."

Everything else in this guide is variations on that question.

What to describe, and how much

• Describe the point of the image, not the pixels. The same photo needs different alt text on different pages. A photo of your storefront on the contact page is "Street view of our shop at the corner of Main and Third, blue awning over the door" because the reader is trying to find you. On an "our history" page it might be "The shop in its original 1990s paint, before the renovation."
• Keep it roughly a sentence. If you need three sentences, the image is probably carrying information that belongs in the page text where everyone can read it.
• Skip "image of" and "picture of". The screen reader already announces it as an image. Starting with "image of" makes every image on your site begin with the same noise.
• Include text that appears inside the image. If the image is a banner that says "Closed July 4th", the alt text is "Closed July 4th." A screen reader cannot read pixels.

Decorative images: alt="" is a real answer

Some images add nothing a listener needs: background flourishes, dividers, a generic stock photo of a handshake. For those, use an empty alt attribute, alt="", which tells the screen reader to skip the image entirely. That is different from having no alt attribute at all. Missing alt means the screen reader guesses, often by reading the file name aloud, and "IMG_20260814_093122.jpg" is nobody's idea of help. Empty alt is a deliberate signal; missing alt is a hole.

The honest test for decorative: if the image vanished, would anyone lose information? If not, alt="" is correct, and it is kinder than a forced description of a stock photo.

The cases that trip people up

Product photos

Describe what a sighted shopper learns by looking: "Waxed canvas tote in olive, leather straps, interior zip pocket visible." Do not repeat the product title the screen reader just read two lines earlier; add what the photo adds.

Images that are links

When an image is inside a link, the alt text becomes the link text. Describe the destination, not the picture: a logo linking home is "Home", not "Company logo in white on blue background."

Charts and graphs

The alt text states the takeaway: "Bar chart: monthly sales roughly doubled between January and June." Then put the underlying numbers in the page text or a table nearby. A chart's job is its conclusion, and the conclusion fits in a sentence.

Photos of people

Name what matters in context: "Our installation crew of four in front of the finished project." Describe appearance only when appearance is the point.

What bad alt text sounds like

Keyword stuffing is the worst offender, because it turns a screen reader into a spam reader: "plumber raleigh emergency plumber best plumber near me water heater" read aloud, in full, on every image. It does not help your search ranking the way people hope, and it makes your site actively hostile to the people alt text exists for. If you would be embarrassed to say it on the phone, do not put it in the attribute.

How to fix a whole site without losing a week

1. Find the misses first. Our free instant check counts images with no alt attribute on any page you give it.
2. Triage. Fix images that carry information or act as links first. Mark true decoration alt="" as you go.
3. Fix the template, not just the page. If your logo or shared banners live in a template, one edit fixes every page at once.
4. Add it to your publishing habit. Most site editors and shop platforms have an alt text field on upload. Filling it at upload time takes seconds; retrofitting hundreds of images takes a weekend.