Alt text, short for alternative text, is a textual description of an image that is picked up by screen reader software and indexed by search engines. Incorporating alt text into your digital marketing materials – including social media – is crucial for several reasons:
✨ Accessibility: More than 7 million people living in the United States have a visual impairment or a visual disability. Alt text ensures that individuals using screen readers can understand the content of the image and not miss out on understanding what your visual is trying to encapsulate. Don't miss out on being accessible to all current and potential customers. Everyone, regardless of their abilities, should be able to engage with your content and understand the message you're conveying.
✨ Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Alt text can improve the search engine optimization of your website and your social media posts. Search engines, like Google, can't interpret images the same way they can decipher text. Alt text provides search engine crawlers with valuable information about the content of the image, which can improve the visibility of your posts in search results.
✨ Enhanced User Experience: Alt text contributes to a better user experience for all users, not just those with visual impairments. It allows individuals who have slow internet connections or those who have disabled images from loading to understand the context of the visual content.
✨ Compliance: In some jurisdictions, websites and social media platforms may be required by law to ensure accessibility for users with disabilities. Including alt text is often considered a best practice for compliance with accessibility standards and regulations such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).
✨ Clarity and Context: Alt text provides additional clarity and context to the content of the image. Even for users who can see the image, alt text can help reinforce the message or provide additional details that may not be immediately apparent from the visual alone.
When putting together website updates, blogs, press releases and social media posts, make it a 2024 goal to add alt text. Think about how you'd briefly describe the image you're looking at. You'll want to be specific, yet succinct.
Do not start with "image of" or "picture of". Instead explain the type of image you're looking at – infographic, animated text graphic, headshot, portrait, etc. Transcribe any text that is part of the image. And lastly, only use one or two top keywords in your alt text. Search engines like Google can tell when you're overstuffing your alt text with keywords and may drop your SERP rankings.
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