Glossary
Image Alt Text
Alt text, short for alternative text, is a written description of an image that you add in the code. Screen readers read it aloud for visitors who cannot see the image, and search engines use it to understand what the picture shows.
What alt text does
Every image on a webpage can carry a hidden text description called alt text. It serves two audiences at once. For a visitor using a screen reader because they are blind or low vision, the alt text is read aloud so they know what the image shows. For a search engine, which cannot truly see a photo, the alt text explains what the image is, which is how pictures end up ranking in Google Image search.
Because it does two jobs, alt text is one of the rare SEO tasks that is also a basic act of accessibility. Doing it well makes your site usable for more people and more understandable to Google in the same stroke.
Why it matters for a local business
Local businesses tend to be image-heavy. Photos of finished jobs, the storefront, the team, the menu. Each of those is a chance to add context Google can read. A photo described as roof replacement on a colonial home in Royal Oak tells Google something a file named IMG_4821 never could.
There is an accessibility and legal angle too. Web accessibility expectations have tightened, and missing alt text is one of the most common complaints. Writing it is cheap insurance as well as good practice.
How to write good alt text
Good alt text describes the image plainly, as if explaining it to someone over the phone. It is not a place to dump keywords, and it should not start with image of, since screen readers already announce that it is an image.
- Describe what the image actually shows, specifically and briefly.
- Work in a relevant keyword only where it fits naturally, never forced.
- Keep it to a sentence or so. Long descriptions get cut off and read poorly.
- Leave alt text empty for purely decorative images so screen readers can skip them.
- Do not start with image of or picture of.
A quick way to audit your site
Most images on small business sites have no alt text at all, because the platform never prompted for it. You can spot the gaps with a free accessibility checker, or by right-clicking an image and inspecting it for an alt attribute. On a site with a few dozen images, filling in honest descriptions is a single afternoon that helps both the people who visit and the search engines that rank you.
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