Why Your Image Alt Text Is Hurting Both SEO and Accessibility

You’ve been painstakingly adding alt text to every image on your site. Good for you. But if you’re just stuffing keywords in there or writing “image of a blue button,” you might actually be making things worse for both people who rely on screen readers and your own search rankings. The question isn’t if you should use alt text—it’s whether your current approach is doing more harm than good.

The Accessibility Problem You Didn’t See Coming

Screen readers interpret alt text as a direct replacement for the image. If a user can’t see the photo of your product, they need to know what it is, not what you want Google to rank for.

The “Decorative Image” Trap

I once audited a client’s e-commerce site where every product photo had alt text like “buy cheap shoes online.” A blind user testing the site heard that phrase repeated 14 times in a row. They left within seconds. The fix was simple: mark purely decorative images with an empty alt attribute (alt="") so screen readers skip them entirely.

Over-Description Is Just as Bad

Writing “a smiling woman in a red dress holding a coffee cup while standing next to a window on a sunny Tuesday afternoon” helps no one. Be concise. If the image is purely decorative or already described in surrounding text, keep it short or leave it empty.

How Bad Alt Text Wrecks Your SEO

Google uses alt text to understand image content, but it’s smarter than you think. Keyword-stuffed alt text can actually trigger spam penalties.

Keyword Stuffing Still Hurts

Search engines have gotten very good at detecting unnatural language. “Cheap running shoes for sale buy now best price” isn’t just useless to users—it signals low-quality content to Google’s algorithms. Your image might rank for a day, but you’ll pay for it with overall site trust.

Missing Context Hurts Discovery

The real SEO value comes from describing what’s actually in the image, naturally. If you sell handmade ceramic mugs, “Hand-thrown stoneware mug with blue glaze” tells Google exactly what the image contains. It matches search intent better than “mug” or “product photo 3.”

One Simple Rule That Fixes Everything

Here’s the mental shortcut I use with every client: Write alt text for someone who can’t see the image, but pretend you’re whispering it to a friend.

• If the image is a chart showing sales growth, write “Bar chart showing 40% revenue increase from Q1 to Q2.”
• If it’s a photo of your team, write “Four team members laughing during a brainstorming session at a whiteboard.”
• If it’s a stock photo of a city skyline that adds atmosphere but no information, use alt="".

The Practical Takeaway

Stop thinking of alt text as an SEO checkbox. Start thinking of it as a tiny piece of user experience. Next time you upload an image, ask yourself: “If this image never loaded, would my content still make sense?” If the answer is no, your alt text needs work. If the answer is yes, consider whether the image even needs text at all.

Your site’s accessibility score—and your search traffic—will thank you.