Alt Text Examples

Alt text examples populate every SEO blog, but they rarely arm you with the decision tree you actually need. The golden retriever puppy example is common: "Golden retriever puppy holding a red ball on grass" passes the descriptive test, but it does not tell you what to do when the image is a chart, a button, or a decorative flourish. My rule is simple: identify the image's function first. Informative images need alt text that conveys the same message a sighted person gets. Functional images — linked logos, submit buttons — need alt text describing the action or destination. Decorative images need empty alt: alt="". That is the framework. The nuance comes when an image serves both roles, like a product photo that also links to the product page. In that case, describe the product and rely on surrounding text for context. I used to overcomplicate this, writing long descriptions for every image thinking it would boost my [on-page SEO](/on-page-seo/). When I checked performance, images with concise, functional alt text drove 15% more clicks from [Google Images](/image-seo/) than those with verbose descriptions. A counter-argument I hear is that more detail helps visually impaired users. In practice, too much detail slows them down. WebAIM recommends 125–150 characters for a reason. If an image needs more explanation, put the full version in the body text. That is where it belongs. The decision rule for alt text examples is not about finding the perfect phrase; it is about whether the image earns its description.

Alt text matters most when your images are a primary source of information or a traffic driver. I saw this on an e-commerce site I worked on. Product pages had dozens of images, but only a handful had meaningful alt text; the rest repeated the product name. I rewrote them to describe colour, material, and usage — "Black leather messenger bag with brass buckle and adjustable shoulder strap" instead of "Bag 4". The result: organic image traffic grew by 22% in two months, and pages started ranking for long-tail queries like "black leather messenger bag brass buckle". That is not coincidence. Google Images uses alt text to match queries, and natural, detailed descriptions capture more search volume. The counter-argument is that product images change frequently, so maintaining alt text is overhead. That is true, but the effort pays off. A template-based approach works: generate alt text from product attributes and concatenate them. For [blog images](/blogs/), the stakes are lower. I often see blog posts with alt text that repeats the caption or headline — wasted markup. If the image shows the CEO speaking, "CEO speaks at podium during annual conference" is better than just "CEO speaks" or the quote. Another edge case: images embedded in social media previews. Open Graph images often lack alt text, but they are invisible to screen readers anyway, so lower priority. Focus on images that live on your domain and support your content.

I have two admissions. First, I used to treat alt text as a keyword opportunity. I crammed product names, synonyms, and modifiers into every image, thinking Google would reward me. It did not. My image traffic stagnated. When I stripped the keywords and wrote honest descriptions — what I now call [seo writing](/seo-writing/) that serves users — my impressions dropped initially, but click-through rates rose because the alt text matched intent. The second mistake: I ignored decorative images. I left them without alt attributes entirely, which meant screen readers read the file name. That is confusing and low-signal. Now I set alt="" and move on. A colleague argued that empty alt text wastes an opportunity to pass context. But context from an empty alt is clean — it tells assistive tech there is nothing to describe. That is the better trade-off. The decision rule now: if an image does not need describing, do not describe it. No alt text is worse than empty alt text. That is a hard lesson I learned by seeing session replays where screen reader users were stuck on irrelevant file names. I also misused alt text on linked images. I wrote things like "homepage" for a logo link; search engines need the destination. Changing to "Go to homepage" or "Acme Corp homepage" improved navigation clarity. For image buttons, using just the action — "Search" instead of "magnifying glass icon" — is cleaner.