Alt Attribute Quality Checker
Analyze the quality and descriptiveness of image alt attributes for SEO and accessibility.
Alt Attribute Quality Checker - Improve Image SEO and Accessibility
The Alt Attribute Quality Checker helps you evaluate how descriptive and effective your image alt attributes are. Alt text plays a critical role in accessibility, image SEO, and overall page quality. This tool scans all images on a page, detects missing or weak alt attributes, and highlights areas that need improvement.
What Is an Alt Attribute?
An alt attribute (alternative text) is an HTML attribute applied to image elements. It provides a textual description of an image for screen readers, search engines, and situations where the image cannot be displayed. Proper alt text improves accessibility and helps search engines understand image context.
Why Alt Text Quality Matters
Alt text is essential for users who rely on assistive technologies. Screen readers read alt text aloud, allowing visually impaired users to understand image content. From an SEO perspective, descriptive alt attributes help search engines associate images with relevant queries and improve image search visibility.
Common Alt Text Mistakes
Many websites either omit alt attributes or use poor-quality text. Common mistakes include empty alt values, overly short text, generic words like "image" or "photo", and keyword stuffing. These issues reduce both accessibility and SEO effectiveness.
How the Alt Attribute Quality Checker Works
This tool fetches the HTML of a page and analyzes every image element. It checks whether the alt attribute exists, evaluates its length, and flags generic or low-quality descriptions. Each image is categorized as good, poor, or missing alt text.
Understanding the Quality Score
The quality score represents the percentage of images that contain meaningful, descriptive alt attributes. A higher score indicates better accessibility compliance and stronger image SEO practices.
SEO Benefits of Optimized Alt Text
Search engines use alt attributes to understand image content. Well-written alt text can help images rank in image search, improve topical relevance, and contribute to overall on-page optimization. While alt text alone won’t guarantee rankings, it strengthens your SEO foundation.
Accessibility and Compliance
Alt attributes are a core requirement of web accessibility standards such as WCAG. Missing or poor alt text can create barriers for users with visual impairments and may expose organizations to accessibility-related complaints or legal risk.
Best Practices for Writing Alt Text
Good alt text should be concise, descriptive, and relevant to the image’s purpose. Describe what’s important in the image without keyword stuffing. If an image is decorative, an empty alt attribute may be appropriate.
When to Use Empty Alt Attributes
Decorative images that do not convey meaningful information should use empty alt attributes (alt=""). This tells screen readers to ignore the image, improving user experience for assistive technology users.
Who Should Use This Tool
This tool is useful for SEO professionals, accessibility auditors, content creators, developers, and website owners who want to improve usability, compliance, and search visibility.
Common Use Cases
- Auditing pages for accessibility compliance
- Improving image SEO performance
- Fixing missing or weak alt attributes
- Preparing websites for accessibility reviews
- Enhancing user experience for screen reader users
Final Thoughts
Alt attributes may seem like a small detail, but they have a big impact on accessibility and SEO. Regularly auditing and improving alt text helps ensure your website is inclusive, search-friendly, and aligned with best practices.
FAQ
What does this tool check?
Does missing alt text affect SEO?
Is alt text required for all images?
Does this tool use third-party APIs?
Can I use this for accessibility audits?
What is considered good alt text?
Related tools
Pro tip: pair this tool with Meta Tags Generator and Title Tag Analyzer for a faster SEO workflow.