Does alt text help SEO?

Indirectly and in image search. It contributes to relevance and understanding, but page rankings ride on content quality; alt text is one input among many.

Should decorative images have alt text?

No, they should have empty alt attributes (alt=""). This tells assistive technology to skip them, which is correct behavior.

Glossary

Glossary•Updated 2026-08-28

What Is Image Alt Text? SEO Guide

Q: What is image alt text?

The text describing an image for screen readers, failed loads, and search understanding. An accessibility feature with image-search benefits.

Alt text describes images in text for screen readers and when images fail to load. It is an accessibility requirement first, with image-search relevance as a secondary benefit.

Explain It Like I'm 5

Alt text is the written description of a picture for people who cannot see it. If a blind visitor uses a screen reader, the alt text is what they "hear" when they reach your image. Describe what is actually IN the picture - not what keywords you wish were in it.

Understanding Image Alt Text

The alt attribute provides textual equivalents of images. Its primary audience is screen-reader users; its secondary audiences are the text shown when images fail and the understanding engines derive from the surrounding visual content.

Writing rules are accessibility rules: describe what is genuinely in the image, be concise, skip decorative images entirely (empty alt), do not begin with "image of", and never stuff keywords. Context matters: the same photo needs different alt text depending on the surrounding content's point.

The image SEO value is real but bounded: alt text contributes to image search relevance and to overall page understanding. Images with descriptive filenames, alt text, and surrounding context rank in image results and can surface in universal search modules.

Programmatic discipline: audit content images for missing alt attributes, template alt text with genuine variation where scale demands it, and leave decorative graphics empty rather than noisy.

Types of Image Alt Text

Informative Alt

Describing a content image in context.

Example: alt="Internal link highlighted in a WordPress post editor" for a screenshot.

Decorative Alt

Empty alt for visual decoration.

Example: alt="" on a divider graphic that carries no information.

Why Alt Text Matters

Alt text is the rare SEO task that is literally an accessibility obligation. Descriptive alt text serves blind users, failing connections, and image search with the same effort.

Accessibility first: screen readers read it aloud

Contributes to image-search relevance and page understanding

Describe what is in the image, concisely

Decorative images get empty alt, not filler

Best Practices

Describe the Image in Context

The alt text should convey what the image shows in service of the surrounding point.

Empty Alt for Decorative Images

alt="" tells screen readers to skip. That is correct for decoration, not neglect.

Concise, No "Image of" Prefix

Screen readers announce image roles already. Get straight to the description.

Audit at Scale

Sweep content for missing alts and templated duplicates. Scale is where alt quality dies.

Common Mistakes

Keyword-stuffing alt attributes

Fix: Alt text stuffed with query phrases fails blind users and reads as spam. Describe, do not advertise.

Writing alt for decorative images

Fix: Filling every alt with text forces screen readers to narrate decoration. Empty alt is the correct silence.

Templated identical alt across a gallery

Fix: Fifty images sharing one alt describes nothing. Vary with the actual content.

Alt Text in WPLink Content

Screenshots in WPLink documentation carry contextual alt describing what the interface state shows, the standard this glossary also follows.

Frequently Asked Questions