Okay, let’s talk about a not-so-sexy but critical little marketing element: alt text. You may have seen the little alt text box when you upload media to a website or social media platform, but do you know what it means? Essentially, alt text describes an image. It’s an important piece of marketing that not everyone is fully utilizing.

Adding Alt Text to Photos

You can add alt text to photos on many platforms such as your website, newsletter, and Instagram. Let’s look at a few reasons why adding alt text to your photos is important.

Why Alt Text is Important

Accessibility

Firstly, did you know there’s such a thing as accessibility in design and marketing? Well, kudos to you if you did and don’t sweat it if you didn’t. Accessibility in marketing is not talked about too often, but thankfully it is starting to come to the forefront of the industry little by little.

Part of being accessible in design is helping create content that helps visually impaired people. The description can be read aloud by a screen reader for visually impaired people which helps them fully understand the image.

If you would like to learn more about accessibility in marketing, listen to the Magic Hour Podcast with designer, Chloe Arielle!

SEO Optimization

We all know how important SEO is, so I won’t say too much on this topic. Essentially, the more keywords that you have, the better all the bots will analyze your content and the more places it will show up. As we talk about in the next section, however, it is important to accurately describe the image and not just stuff it full of keywords.

Loading Errors

Have you ever clicked on a website or newsletter that takes forever to load? Well, alt text can come in handy! Since it describes the photo, a customer can check out what the alt text says which could be the difference between them exiting the page immediately and staying on to wait for the content to finish loading.

How to Properly Add Alt Text

Keep It Short and Descriptive

When you add alt text to a photo, you want to make sure that you are accurately describing the image using rich, descriptive keywords. You do not have to write a book when describing an image but do include details that are relevant to the photo. Since the alt text is supposed to aid people with visual impairments, you can try describing the photo with as much detail as possible to paint a clear picture.

Use Proper Sentences – Not Just Keywords

Do not mistake this for inserting a list of keywords related to your business. Instead, write out a detailed sentence describing what is in the image and use keywords when applicable, all while using proper grammar and punctuation (of course!).

That’s it! You have successfully added alt text to your images, increased your performance in SEO, and most importantly, helped make your content more accessible.

Thanks for Reading!

Read What Your Website Needs to find a list of important things to include on your website and some resources! 

Listen to our Magic Hour Podcast – an intentional space where we show up to let our curiosity drive inclusive, empowering conversations about marketing, design, entrepreneurship, and socially conscious topics.

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