Some small things in life should be overlooked — like when your spouse leaves dirty socks on the floor or when your friend runs late for a lunch date.
But when it comes to SEO, overlooking small things — like adding image alt text— can actually be a big mistake!
Adding relevant and appropriate image alt tag/text information is a super simple step that Squarespace website owners can take that will have a big impact on your search ranking.
Many people ignore this little detail when adding images to their site. They leave file names like, “IMG_5832.jpg” as their image alt text, and leave an easy SEO win on the table.
But making alt text work for you is actually quite simple. In this guide, we’ll run through how to structure your image alt text and descriptions for maximum SEO potential.
Image source: Unsplash
But first, let’s quickly run through some alt text basics:
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What’s the point of image alt text?
Defined: An image alt tag, also known as "alt attribute" and "alt description," is an HTML attribute applied to image tags to provide a text alternative for search engines and can help to improve SEO.
In layman’s terms, alt text helps search engine crawlers "see" the images on a website page by delivering a text interpretation of the image.
Where can I add image alt text in Squarespace?
To add alt text to an image in a Gallery Page:
Click the Gallery Page in the Pages panel.
Find an image to edit, hover over it, and click gear icon.
Then, post your custom alt title or description using the formula we’ll discuss below.
If you’re looking to add alt text to other types of Squarespace images (like image blocks) refer to this link on how to do that.
Now, let’s dive into how to actually write them.
Image Source: Unsplash
There are three parts to our formula for writing SEO-optimized image alt text:
A name / description of the photo
1-2 keywords
Including your name (if relevant, we’ll discuss this more below) and your business location (or the location of the photo)
Although this isn’t the only way to structure SEO-friendly image alt tags, this is the formula we’ve seen perform best at our agency. It also keeps things really simple. So, let’s dive into it in more detail:
Name/Description of Photo
The name and description of the photo should easily describe what’s in the photo— preferably something that is unique about what’s in the photo.
So, for example, say the photo on your website was of a celebrity you have photographed. You would simply use a name/description like, “A photo of Brad Pitt, Actor.” Or if your photo was of an animal, you could say “A photo of a White Siberian tiger”.
Like we said very simple.
The trick is making the name and description flow with the next two parts of the formula:Keywords
When adding keywords to your alt text, you’ll want to try limit it to one or two keywords. This will help keep you safe from being penalized for keyword stuffing. Try to make the keywords something generic that your potential customers would search for.
When adding keywords to your alt text, you’ll want to try limit it to one or two keywords. This will help keep you safe from being penalized for keyword stuffing. Try to make the keywords something generic that your potential customers would search for.Let’s use the Brad Pitt example above. The keyword section of your alt text could be: “celebrity photography”.
So, your image alt text would read “A photo of Brad Pitt, celebrity photography.”
Now all that’s left to add is your name and location.
Your Name / Location
For our example’s purpose and for some professions like photography, art, etc. (where the individual’s name is an important part of their business) you’ll want to include your name in the image alt text. Then, include the location of your business, or the location in which the photo was shot.
So, your final image alt text would be: “A photo of Brad Pitt, celebrity photography, Alison Jones, Los Angeles.”Side note: Because your name never changes, it’s not necessary to use it in every photo alt text description. Use it in just a handful and leave it out of the rest.
The real key to all of this is making this entire description flow like a sentence. It can be a broken sentence, but it should have a logical flow to it.
Try to keep your alt text between 7-12 words total.
Here are a few more examples of prime alt text descriptions:On location headshot and portrait of Susie Jasmine (Name/Description of Photo), Aesthetic Photography (Keyword), Photographer Name & Location
NBA Finalist Lebron James After Game 4, Sports Photography, Photographer Name & Location
Now that you have the basic formula down, let’s look at more best practices for optimizing your image alt text.
More Best Practices for Adding Image Alt Text for SEO
Use Images often
A great way to maximize the impact of image alt text on your SEO is to use more images!
Squarespace website owners should aim to use 1-5 high resolution, relevant images per webpage, and about 1-3 images per blog post. Of course, you’re always welcome to use more if it works with your design.
Make sure all of these images — even on blog or event posts — use the formula we discussed above for your image alt text descriptions.
Use Free Stock Imagery
Image Source: Unsplash
If you’re lost on where to find all these awesome new photos for your website, free stock imagery is a great option. Websites like Unsplash, Pexels or Gratisography offer high-resolution professional photos that are royalty free.
The key to using these is that you change the file names and image alt text. Otherwise, instead of making the photos work for your SEO and promotional purposes, it’s working for the site you downloaded them from!
Use Alt Tags to Help Users with Assistive Screen Readers
For users with visual impairment who rely on assistive screen readers, alt text is an important component for understanding the content of your website. Assistive screen readers read alt descriptions aloud in order to help their users understand what’s being displayed in a photo.
Alt text is also what is displayed if a user can’t load a photo from your site.
These are just a few more is reasons to make your alt text flow more like sentence than a description of jumbled keywords.
Use Alt Text on your Icons
Alt text isn’t just reserved for images— it can be used on your website icons and buttons as well! And adding alt text to your icons and buttons delivers the same SEO benefits.
Adding Squarespace Image Alt Text is Really That Simple
Realizing the ease at which image alt text can be written and added to your Squarespace site makes it a real no-brainer when it comes to easy SEO optimization. Remember, small changes like this add up. Even just a 1% increase to a page with 20,000 monthly visits is an extra 200 visitors! That’s 200 more chances you have to snag a new customer.
Looking for more tips on improving your Squarespace SEO? Check out our free SEO guides.
