I recently wrote a blog post all about the importance of SEO. Having Alt text for your images is one way that can significantly improve your SEO rating.

What is it?

Individuals who are hard of sight may use a screen reader to navigate your website. A screen reader does exactly that, it reads out loud what is shown on your website, so when the screen reader gets to an image, an alt text will tell the reader what is shown on the image. Also if someone is on a poor internet connection, not all images may load, if this is the case the Image alt text is shown. This enables everyone who visits your website does not miss any important information that is shown on your website.

A third reason, is when Google or other search engines crawl your website, it will look at the image Alt text, and use that to show the images in relevant image searches.

Here's how you do it.

Images on your Pages

There are two places where you will need to go to depending on where the image is saved, each website will be different, so if you don't find the image from the pages tab make sure to check on the front end customiser.

For your alt text, try to write them as if you were describing the image to someone who can't see the image. Keep it brief - so no long paragraph about the image - but use as much detail as you can.

Pages Tab

Locate the 'Pages' tab

• Using the menu on the left hand side of your screen, select 'Online shop'
• A menu will now appear underneath, now click 'Pages'

Add Image alt text

• Select the page that your image is on that you wish to add the alt text to.
• Once you have selected the page, locate the image that will be in the center text box. You may need to scroll down within this box to find the image.
• Double click on the image.

• A box will now pop up. Add the image alt text in the text box labeled 'Image alt text'
• Once you have finished, click on the edit image button.
• Do this for every image on your pages.

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Front End Customiser

If the Images you wish to find are not on the pages tab, or you are looking for the home page then you will need to go onto the front end customiser to add the alt text.

CAUTION: You have the ability to edit the layout and content of your website on the front-end customiser, any changes you make cannot be undone, so be cautious, and only do what you are comfortable doing.

Locate the Customiser

• Using the left hand navigation bar, select 'Online shop' and then 'Customise' on the screen that appears once you press it.

• You will now be re-directed to the customiser.
• The default page on the customiser is the Home page, any and all edits to the home page need to happen here
• If you wish to navigate to a different page, on the top of the screen you can click on the dropdown menu and select which page you wish to navigate to.

• On the left hand side of the screen there is a list of all the sections that make up the page.
• Navigate to the section that your image is on.
• Note: There are some sections that will pull the images from your product listings, for these images you cannot add the image alt text on the customiser, you will need to navigate to the product listing as shown below and add the alt text.
• Once you have found the image, click on the button labels 'Edit'

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• Add the image alt text in the box that pops up.
• Once you have finished click save.
• Make sure to add alt text to all images on your customiser.

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Product Images

The alt text on product images are a little different to the other images on your site. Instead of being descriptive, they should be keyword driven, so that your products are more likely to be ranked higher on Google for the selected keywords that you are targeting. For example, for the image below a good alt text may be "Compostable Bamboo Toothbrush". This is both describing the product, but also using the keywords, compostable, bamboo, and toothbrush. So it is very targeted and to the point.

Locate your products

• Log into your Shopify account
• Using the menu on the left hand side of your screen, select 'Products'

• Select the product that you wish to add the Image alt text to.

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Adding the Alt text

• Once on the product page, double click on the image that you wish to edit.

• The Image will then go full screen.
• To the right of the screen click on the text that says 'Add alt Text', or if your image already has alt text that you wish to edit it will say 'Edit alt text'

• A small text box will then appear and you will add your alt text here.
• Once complete click on the button below the text box that says 'Save alt text'

• Repeat this process for all of your product images, the alt text is individual for each image. So make sure to add one for each separate image.

So now you have finished all of your image alt text and have improved your SEO. Well done!

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