Alt Text.

Alt text (the `alt` attribute on HTML `<img>` elements) provides a textual description of an image for contexts where the image cannot be displayed or seen, including screen readers for visually impaired users, browsers with images disabled, and search engine crawlers that cannot interpret visual content.

Writing Effective Alt Text

Good alt text describes the image concisely and accurately, including relevant keywords where they occur naturally. It should not be keyword-stuffed or duplicated across many images. For decorative images that add no informational value, an empty `alt=''` attribute tells screen readers to skip the image.

Alt Text and Google Images Ranking

Google uses alt text as a primary signal for understanding image content, subject matter, and relevance to surrounding page text. Well-written alt text that aligns with page topic and target keywords increases the likelihood of images ranking in Google Images and appearing in image-rich SERP features.