Alternative Text for Images

One of the key components of accessibility is providing alt text for images, especially if the images contain text.

This is because, when people with visual impairments use your website, they rely on a screen-reader to read the text out to them. This only works with images if they are described using alternative text (usually referred to as “alt text”).

Describing images with alt text improves your search engine rankings.

Describing images is helpful for people with neurological processing disorders, and people who do not speak English (they will get a translation of the alt text).

Web accessibility is a legal requirement in Åland, Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus,
the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, the European Union, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Romania, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

How to write great alt text

The alt text should mention:

• The type of image (drawing, photo, video, animated GIF, AI-generated, etc) – but don’t write “image of” or “picture of”
• A specific description of what is depicted in the image or video, e.g.
  • A shiny green apple with a red maple leaf on a wooden table
  • Woman in a purple jacket riding a bike through a city park in spring
  • Bar chart showing a 30% increase in online sales from Q3 to Q4 in 2024
  • Carnelian Web Services logo
  • Airedale puppy playing with a red ball on the grass.
  • Chef slicing fresh vegetables on a wooden cutting board.
• A transcript of any text in the image or video
• A transcript of the audio track of a video
• The creator of the image

The following graphic is the visual equivalent of what your website is like for visually impaired people if you do not provide alternative text for your images: just a series of empty speech bubbles.

Further reading

• A Complete Guide to Alt Text Best Practices for Web Accessibility, by Amit Aggarwal – Accessibility Partners Canada (March 15, 2025)
• The Complete Guide to Alt Text for SEO and Accessibility – Casandra Visser, Yotam Flohr, Ritvik Shrivastava – Accessibility Checker (April 30, 2025)