8 ways to boost your alt text SEO strategy

Alternate text. You know it’s important for SEO.

In fact, Google says alt text is a ranking factor.

And with the rise of visual search, describing images for web crawlers has become even more important.

But what can you do to make alt text even better than a short sentence describing an image?

In fact, alt text benefits from strategy just like any other part of SEO.

This should be a strategy that not only makes alt text more effective, but also makes alt text creation easier and more automated, allowing you to focus on higher-level areas.

The more matched your keywords (technical components on your page such as content, backlinks, and alt text) are, the better your chances of ranking.

You can enter the keywords manually, or use a service like AltText.ai to integrate the keywords into the AI-generated alt text.

What is alt text?

Let’s start with the basics.

Alternate text is HTML code that describes what is in the image. Screen readers use alt text to help people with visual impairments.

In addition, search engines use alt text to understand what the page is about and how to index it.

Missing alt text is a problem.

Better to have relevant alt text.

SEO-optimized alt text is best.

But how do we get there without spending hours manually typing it in?

Here’s how:

1) Methodically prioritize, update, and add alt text to key images

We know many people who find themselves in this situation. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of images without alt text.

I know you need it, but that’s the way it is. bits and pieces. who has time for that?

nobody, who it is

So to facilitate that, the first approach is to prioritize.

Add alt text to frequently visited pages

Go to your frequently visited pages and manually enter the alt text for those images.

You can work on your top 5, 10, or 20 pages when you have time.

Bulk update alt text with AI

If you have a lot of images, you might consider using AI to automate the alt text.

With powerful tools like AltText.ai, you can bulk update your entire image library in a fraction of the time a copywriter needs.

Best results: use this hybrid AI and manual alt text approach

Then there is the hybrid approach. Bulk update alt text with AI and manually tune your most popular posts.

AltText.ai has an optional human review feature for those times when you don’t have time but want the highest level of accuracy and reliability.

Additionally, some images, such as infographics, require extra time and effort to decompress.

By offloading simple images to AI, you can spend time on images that actually require a human touch.

2) Routine adding alt text

When uploading new images, just make alt text part of your normal workflow.

There are two easy ways to do this.

• Implement an alt text checklist before publishing a post.
• Use an app or plugin that automatically generates alt text when images are added or updated.

Most CMS systems have fields for alternate text, but some are easier than others.

WordPress lets you enter alt text from your media library or when creating a post.

Other sites, like Shopify, force you to click the product photo.

While many companies are working to improve accessibility features (such as making alt text input more intuitive), you may need to familiarize yourself with your particular CMS.

AltText.ai simplifies this workflow by automatically generating all of the alt text behind the scenes. No additional steps are required as it runs in the background.

AltText.ai integrations are currently available for WordPress, Shopify, Contentful, Hygraph, in addition to the web interface and developer API.

3) Use alt text to provide image context and keywords

Describing what the image contains is not enough.

As important as the alt text is, typing “cat” in a pet photo doesn’t help with ranking. [cat].

Instead, provide image context that lets Google be as specific as possible about what you’re providing.

Consider a picture of a hot air balloon.

“Hot air balloon” is a generic alternative text that doesn’t really tell Google what your site is about or what it’s worth to users.

However, labeling the alt text “hot air balloons over Napa Valley” or “hot air balloons and additional supplies for sale” would indicate to Google what to provide and to whom, along with additional information on the page. should be strengthened. shown.

Keywords are important here as well. You probably spent a lot of time doing keyword research. Go ahead and make the most of it!

Be sure to include your keywords in the alt text.

4) Avoid keyword stuffing in alt text

Yes, you should include keywords, but do so carefully.

Keyword stuffing not only worsens the user experience, but it can also look spammy to search engines.

The alt text should be:

• Grammatically correct.
• Easy-to-read sentences or phrases that avoid excessive verbosity or explanation unrelated to the image itself.

This is where your inner poet may need to come into play, as you want to weave in keywords in a natural and fluid way.

often it is Better choose 1 or 2 keywordsinstead of forcibly putting everything in.

Remember, alt text is only one factor when it comes to search rankings. The most important thing is to create a high-quality, popular page, which means writing consistent and accurate alt text.

When choosing the automated alt text route, AltText.ai always balances the need for keywords and descriptive alt text that is not real spam. With the help of AI language models, AltText.ai creates natural-sounding sentences by choosing the most relevant SEO keywords.

5) Avoid using basic alt text expressions

It may be tempting to use a standardized format and call it quits.

Let’s say you have an e-commerce store and you have an alt text template “product brand” + “product name”.

This is certainly better than nothing, but it’s very general and doesn’t capture every attribute people might search for.

How to configure alt text

Combine distinctive and important details with basic product data.

If you sell popular items, these additional details can give you an edge over your competitors.

Common search terms include:

• colour.
• Special features and design.
• material used.

And here again AI comes to the rescue. If these features appear in product photos, AI computer vision can automatically detect them and combine them with product data.

This is a huge time saver if you have a huge product catalog with alt text that is too basic to convey to your customers or what they might be searching for.

6) Don’t make perfection the enemy of goodness

seriously.

Yes, alt text is a valuable SEO asset. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to optimize the profit on that property? But if you don’t have bandwidth right now, try to get something.

According to John Mueller of Google’s Search Off the Record podcast, “If you’re just adding alt text for the first time, sometimes any alt text is better than nothing.”

why? From an accessibility perspective, a screen reader encountering an image without alt text might read useless (not to mention annoying) information, such as the alphanumeric filename of the image. It will be a terrible experience.

Also, from an SEO perspective, Google takes accessibility seriously, and oversights such as lack of alt text can be seen as a censure to the site.