Image SEO: Alt text guidelines

Image SEO, also called image optimisation, is the process of optimising the images on your website to make it easy for Google to find and rank them. 

In other words, it helps Google and other search engines to “understand” your content and show your images in the image search results. 

The purpose of alt text

Alt text, or alternative text, is a brief description added to images on a website, enabling screen readers to convey visual content to individuals with visual impairments. Well-crafted alt text is essential for ensuring web accessibility and usability. The best alt text takes into consideration the context of the image along with its purpose.

Additionally, it also makes the visual content available for technical applications, such as SEO  and artificial intelligence (AI).

General guidelines

When writing alt text, follow these guidelines:

• Alt text should always be added (and never changed) to all your images (featured and in-body). If you want to change the alt text, upload a new photo afresh
• Keep it short and to the point
• Your alt text should always contain your keyword/keyphrase to improve SEO
• Alt text should contain contextual information relating to your story
• For  “stock photos” it is fine to use generic descriptions of what the image is about
• For news, however, the context can be specific to the event or the person