What is alt text and why your business needs it

Many top business websites lack proper alt text on crucial images, creating invisible barriers for thousands of potential customers. Alt text provides essential descriptions that enable screen readers to convey image content to visually impaired users whilst also appearing when images fail to load. This guide explains what alt text means for your business, clarifies best practices for writing effective descriptions, and demonstrates how implementing proper alt text enhances accessibility, strengthens SEO performance, and protects against legal compliance risks.

Table of Contents

• Key takeaways
• What alt text is and why it matters
• How to write effective alt text for your website
• Handling complex images and special cases
• Implementing alt text on your business website: practical steps
• Enhance your website with expert web development and SEO services
• Frequently asked questions

Key Takeaways

What alt text is and why it matters

Alt text is a brief descriptive text added to the HTML alt attribute of images to provide a textual equivalent for non-visual users, screen readers, and when images fail to load. When a visually impaired person visits your website using assistive technology, the screen reader announces the alt text instead of simply stating “image” without context. This transforms visual information into accessible content that everyone can understand.

Beyond accessibility, alt text serves critical functional purposes. When images cannot load due to slow connections, browser settings, or technical errors, the alt text appears in place of the missing visual. This preserves your message and maintains communication with visitors regardless of technical circumstances. For business websites showcasing products, services, or team members, this fallback ensures your content remains comprehensible.

“Alt text enables equal access to web content by describing images for those who cannot see them, whilst simultaneously improving site usability for all visitors.”

The accessibility benefits align directly with legal standards and user inclusivity requirements. Websites serving customers must comply with accessibility guidelines to avoid discrimination claims and potential lawsuits. Providing proper alt text demonstrates commitment to serving all customers equally whilst reducing legal exposure.

Alt text also contributes to SEO by helping search engines understand image content. Whilst this should never be the primary motivation, effective image optimisation naturally incorporates descriptive alt text that both serves accessibility needs and provides context for search algorithms. Search engines cannot “see” images but can read alt text, making these descriptions valuable for image search rankings and overall content relevance.

Key benefits include:

• Screen readers announce alt text to visually impaired users, making visual content accessible
• Alt text displays when images fail to load, preserving message continuity
• Search engines use alt text to understand and index image content
• Proper implementation demonstrates legal compliance with accessibility standards
• All users benefit from clearer context around visual elements

How to write effective alt text for your website

Writing quality alt text requires understanding the difference between meaningful and decorative images. Meaningful images convey essential information, whilst decorative images serve purely aesthetic purposes without adding content value. Each category demands a different approach to alt text implementation.

For meaningful images, describe the essential content or function within 10-15 words or approximately 125 characters. Focus on what the image communicates rather than simply listing what appears visually. A product photo needs functional description like “stainless steel coffee maker with programmable timer” rather than “image of appliance on counter.” Context matters tremendously. The same team photo might be described as “customer service team available for support” on a contact page but “leadership team with 50 years combined experience” on an about page.

Decorative images that provide no informational value should use empty alt text (alt=“”) rather than descriptive text. This signals screen readers to skip the image entirely, avoiding unnecessary clutter in the user experience. Decorative borders, background patterns, or purely aesthetic graphics fall into this category. Many businesses mistakenly add descriptions to every image, creating frustrating experiences for screen reader users who must listen to irrelevant descriptions.

Linked images and buttons require alt text describing the link destination or button function rather than the image itself. A logo linking to your homepage should use alt text like “Kickass Online homepage” instead of “company logo.” This tells users where the link leads, which matters far more than visual description.

Follow these steps for writing effective descriptions:

1. Identify whether the image is meaningful, decorative, or functional
2. Write concise descriptions focusing on essential information or purpose
3. Tailor descriptions to surrounding content and page context
4. Keep length to 10-15 words maximum for optimal screen reader experience
5. Use empty alt=“” for purely decorative images
6. Describe link destinations for clickable images
7. Include relevant keywords naturally without forcing or stuffing terms

Keywords can appear in alt text when they genuinely describe the image, but accessibility must always take priority over SEO considerations. Forcing keywords into descriptions that do not naturally fit creates poor user experiences and violates accessibility principles. Your conversion rate optimisation efforts benefit far more from accessible, user-focused descriptions than from keyword-stuffed text.

Pro Tip: Read your alt text aloud without looking at the image. If someone could understand what the image conveys from your description alone, you have written effective alt text.

Handling complex images and special cases

Certain image types require specialised approaches beyond standard descriptive alt text. Logos should describe brands, images of text should include the actual text content, complex charts require summaries plus supplementary tables, and grouped images need strategic null alt attributes on redundant elements.

Logos present unique challenges because they serve both branding and navigational functions. When your logo links to the homepage, use alt text identifying your brand and the link purpose, such as “Kickass Online home.” This provides both brand recognition and functional clarity. Avoid redundant phrases like “logo” since the brand name itself suffices.

Images containing text demand that alt text reproduce the text exactly. Screenshots of social media posts, infographics with embedded copy, or promotional banners must include all readable text in the alt attribute. This ensures screen reader users receive identical information to sighted visitors. For lengthy text images, consider whether the content should exist as actual HTML text instead.

Complex charts, graphs, and diagrams need brief alt text summarising the key insight plus a longer description via