I was checking product image alt text for Shopify stores and noticed a simple way to find missing alt text without installing an app.
Manual method:
- Go to Shopify Admin
- Open Products
- Click Export
- Export your products as a CSV
- Open the CSV in Excel or Google Sheets
- Look for the “Image Alt Text” column
- Blank cells in that column usually mean product images are missing alt text
This matters because alt text helps screen-reader users understand product images, and it can also help Google understand image content better.
A simple alt text example:
Bad:
“product image”
Better:
“black leather tote bag with gold strap”
Another example:
Bad:
“image”
Better:
“gold hoop earrings on white background”
Don’t keyword-stuff. Describe what the product image actually shows.
For larger catalogs, checking this manually can be slow, so I made a free browser-based CSV checker here:
It checks your Shopify product CSV, shows how many product image rows are missing alt text, and lets you download a CSV with suggested alt text. No signup required.
I’m still improving it, so feedback on whether the suggestions are useful would be helpful.