Why Alt Text on Images Matters (Even If You Can't See a Difference)

Alt text lives in the code behind an image, not on the page itself — if you can see the photo just fine, you'd never notice whether it's there or not. That's exactly why it's so easy to skip, and exactly why skipping it matters more than it seems.

Who alt text is actually for

Visitors using a screen reader can't see the image at all — the alt text is read aloud in its place, describing what's there. It also shows up as fallback text if an image fails to load for any visitor, on any connection.

The SEO side benefit

Search engines can't "see" images either. Alt text is one of the few direct ways they understand what's actually in a photo, which can help that image — and the page it's on — show up in relevant searches.

What makes good alt text

Describe what's actually in the image, relevant to the context it's used in. Skip phrases like "image of" — screen readers already announce that it's an image — and keep it concise rather than an overly detailed paragraph.

Purely decorative images don't need it

For an image that's purely decorative and adds nothing informative, an empty alt attribute lets a screen reader skip right past it, rather than announcing something irrelevant that interrupts the flow of the page.