Why Alt Text is Essential for Your Small Business Website

By Copy Writes Copy

In today's visually-driven digital world, captivating website visitors is paramount for small businesses.

However, it's equally vital to ensure that your website caters to all users, including those with visual impairments. This is where the power of alt text (alternative text) becomes indispensable.

In this blog post, we look at the significance of alt text for your small business website, and discover how this often overlooked element not only enhances accessibility but also turbocharges your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

Enhancing Accessibility

Alt text is crucial for making your website accessible to individuals with visual impairments, or those who use screen readers. By providing a concise and accurate description of the image, you enable visually impaired users to understand the content, and context of the image.

This allows them to have a more inclusive browsing experience, and fully engage with your website's visuals.

Including alt text also complies with web accessibility standards, such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), ensuring that your website is accessible to a wider audience.

Improving SEO

Alt text plays a vital role in search engine optimisation. Search engines like Google rely on alt text to understand and index images on your website.

When you include descriptive alt text, it helps search engines comprehend the visual content and improves the chances of your images appearing in relevant search results. This can drive more organic traffic to your website and increase its visibility.

Also, alt text provides an opportunity to incorporate relevant keywords related to your business, helping to optimise your website's SEO strategy.

Conveying Information

Alt text allows you to convey important information that may be represented visually.

Whether it's product images, infographics, or charts, alt text provides a textual description of the visual elements, ensuring that all users can access the information being conveyed. This is particularly important for small businesses that rely on visual content to showcase their products or services.

Alt text also help potential customers understand the features, benefits, and details of your offerings, even if they can't see the images themselves.

Avoiding Broken Images

In situations where images fail to load properly, due to slow internet connections or technical issues, alt text serves as a fallback option. Instead of displaying a broken image icon, the alt text appears, providing users with information about the missing image.

This ensures that even if the visual content doesn't load, visitors can still understand the intended message or purpose of the image.

Conclusion

Make it a habit to include alt text for all images on your website, ensuring that every visitor, regardless of their visual ability, can fully engage with your content. Remember, by prioritising accessibility, you not only demonstrate inclusivity, but also potentially attract a larger audience and drive more traffic to your small business website.

Need help writing your small business website?

Then get in touch with Copy Writes Copy, the small copywriter for small businesses in all sectors.