Google on Alt Text SEO & Accessibility - Search Engine Journal

Google podcast discussion considers balancing alt text for SEO & accessibility

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Google’s John Mueller and Lizzi Sassman discuss creating image alt text that’s good for those using screen readers, briefly touching on what to do about decorative images and how it’s tricky to write alt text that finds the balance between SEO and accessibility.

Alt Text is For Accessibility & SEO?

According to the World Wide Web Consortium (commonly referred to as the W3C), the official HTML standards body, the purpose of the image alt text is to make images understandable to site visitors who cannot view image content and are using screen readers.

Alt text also helps those using screen readers understand the purpose of the image or become aware of text that is in the image.

The W3C also says that alt text has an SEO purpose as well.

“…if you want your website to be indexed as well as it deserves, use the alt attribute to make sure that they won’t miss important sections of your pages.”

The purpose of alt text can be said to be for making images understandable and accessible to those who cannot see the image, which includes search engine bots.

It takes a surprising amount of thought to get the alt text right. The W3C published an alt text tutorial for seven different kinds of image...

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