Alt text is a textual substitute to be read or displayed in place of non-text content. They are most commonly attached to images and are an essential aspect of your content. Alt text is used:
When visitors use screen readers or other audio-based software to visit your site, the alt text is read aloud to explain the image's content.
When an image doesn’t load, such as when a user has a slow internet connection, the alt text loads in place of the image.
When using a browser that does not display images or if a user has images disabled in their browser.
Search engines use alt text to understand images as they crawl your site to increase website traffic. Using alt text to boost SEO improves your chances of displaying in search results.
Writing Alt Text
You must use alt text with informative, functional, and complex images. Alt text should state the information that the image portrays while describing the content. Follow these tips when writing alt text:
Keep it short and simple; built-in alt text fields in EngagementHQ, excluding images inserted into text editors and the Photos widget, have a maximum of 125 characters.
Include relevant keywords, if possible, but only if they’re necessary to the image description.
Avoid phrases like "image of" or "photo of" in your alt text, and avoid using the image's file name as your alt text.
For complex images, such as charts or graphs, you should provide a more detailed description of what the image conveys alongside the image. This will be helpful to both screen reader users and visual users. You should still include simple alt text for the image.
If your image contains text, the alt text should include that text content. Similarly, if your image is a link, the alt text must explain the link's destination.
Your images should always be relevant to the text they accompany and be inserted next to the related information.
Decorative images, such as homepage tile images or icons, don’t need alt text. However, the alt text attribute must be empty to prevent a screen reader from reading the file name. To add an empty alt text attribute to an image, open the alt text option for the image, leave it empty, and save it.
Adding Alt Text in EngagementHQ
Most image fields in EngagementHQ include an option to add alt text, with the exceptions being fields for decorative images. In homepage sections, the Photos widget, and project images and banners, you’ll find an Image Alternative Text field when you edit the image.
For the freestyle content section of your homepage and images inserted directly into text editors, the alt text option is available by selecting the T icon in the image options. Once you select Update, the alt text is saved.
