How does alt text for images improve search engine visibility?

[suspiria]

Hi there!

anybody can help me with how alt text for images work? I want my art to appear on google or any other search engines..I’m invisible right now. Any links?

thank you!

[Josh_Uebergang]

Can you clarify as to what you mean by "how they work"? From a Google perspective? There's plenty of good resources out there on this. Or maybe you want to know how do you edit them on a particular page? 

[suspiria]

Hi, Josh!

I meant..is there a way to let’s say using photoshop or any other program to add alt text to images so they rank on google search/other search engines ..for example if I do an artwork of Dracula, upload my artwork on Shopify (i sell prints on Shopify) how can that image appear on google when you search for “Dracula” ...I’m invisible online. Someone told me to open the image on a program like photoshop and add info/tags/alt text and then upload on Shopify or other apps like tumblr.

thanks again!

[Zworthkey]

@suspiria 
For that you have hire an Shopify Partner to help you.
either you can learn several tutorials in the youtube.

Thank you.

[Greta · Accepted solution]

Hi there, @suspiria!

Great question — I'm happy to help and provide some more information about alt text. As you mentioned, alt text can help your store appear higher on search engines, and it is also a great way to make your store more accessible. 

Alt (alternative) text describes a media item and is an important part of a product description. If media (such as a product picture) can't load for any reason, then alt text is shown instead. It's also used by assistive technology to describe an image to a customer who's visually impaired. I recommend checking out our alt text help document to read more about what alt text is and how you can add it to the media on your store. You can also check out our Accessibility for Themes document for other tips on making your online store accessible. 

If you want to read up on SEO and how to improve your store's ranking on search engines (including how to best use alt text), I recommend checking out these posts from our Shopify blog:

• What is SEO Marketing and How Does it Work? (2022)
• Ecommerce SEO: The Complete Beginner's Guide (2022)

I also wanted to share that if you want a more automated approach to adding alt text to your store's images, you can use an app from our app store. You can find the full list of apps here, and here are some popular options:

• SEO Master & Image Optimizer by Giraffly — 5 stars, free.
• Alt Text by Image Optimizer — 4.7 stars, $1.99/month.
• Bulk Image Edit ‑ Image SEO by Hextom — 4.8 stars, free plan available. 
• Image Optimizer by Squirai — 4.5 stars, free plan available. 

If you're new to using third party apps, I recommend checking out our General Guide To Third Party Apps for more information on what apps are, how to add them to your store, and how to get support. 

I hope this helps, and please let me know if you have any more questions about alt text and SEO! 

[suspiria]

Thank you so so much!

great links and will look into it ASAP!

susi 

[Rich_Caseo_AI]

Hi Susprira, you can also check out A.I powered image reading solutions like Caseo.ai and Alttext.ai which are huge timesavers. 

[optizenapp]

Hi @suspiria,

Alt text certainly is an under used feature on not only Shopify stores, but many sites IMO. If added correctly, it can significantly improve clicks from Google image search to your store. It can also lead to conversions all things being equal. 

While in many case you need to take what Google says with a grain of salt.  For alt text of images, in our experience, if you follow their guidelines (https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/google-images) you'll see the best results.

What we find is many store owners, if they do bother with alt text, is over optimizing the alt text. In our experience, the following