Listing optimization
How to write alt text for product photos
· 4 min read
Alt text is a short, specific sentence describing what a product photo shows, read aloud by screen readers and indexed by search engines. Name the product, its distinguishing detail, and its context, for example a navy wool overcoat, front view, on a model, rather than a generic label like image1.jpg or a keyword-stuffed phrase. Leave alt text empty only for purely decorative images that repeat text already on the page.
Lakukan dengan RorlAIProduct: Clean studio backdrop for anything boxed or bottled.What alt text is actually for
Alt text is the description read aloud by a screen reader when a person cannot see the image, and it is also one of the few places search engines can read words directly off a photo. Google's own developer documentation describes it as explaining the relationship between an image and the surrounding content, and as one of the more useful places to place the words a shopper would actually search for. Both audiences, a screen reader user and a search crawler, are served by the same plain, accurate sentence.
What good alt text looks like on a product photo
| Bad | Why | Better |
|---|---|---|
| IMG_4821.jpg | Says nothing about the image | Navy wool overcoat, front view, on model |
| Buy the best overcoat online cheap overcoat sale | Reads as keyword stuffing, not a description | Navy wool overcoat, front view, on model |
| Coat | Too generic to distinguish from every other coat on the site | Navy wool overcoat with double breasted buttons, front view |
| A beautiful, stylish, must-have coat | Describes a feeling, not what is in the frame | Navy wool overcoat, back view showing the vent detail |
Writing one sentence per image
- 1Name the productUse the same name a shopper would recognise from the listing title, not an internal SKU or a vague category word.
- 2Add the one distinguishing detail this specific photo showsIf a listing has five photos, each one is probably showing something different, a front view, a close-up of a button, a back view, a detail of the lining. Say which one this image is.
- 3Note the context if it is not obviousOn a model, on a hanger, flat lay, ghost mannequin. This matters more for clothing than for a static object, since the same garment can look different in each context and a screen reader user has no other way to know which one they are hearing about.
- 4Stop thereA sentence, not a paragraph. Google's own guidance on alt text calls for a concise, accurate description rather than an exhaustive one, and a screen reader reading a hundred word block for every thumbnail on a category page is a worse experience than a short one, not a more helpful one.
When to leave alt text empty
An empty alt attribute, written as alt with nothing between the quotes rather than left off entirely, is the correct choice for a purely decorative image, one that adds nothing a screen reader user needs and repeats information already given in text nearby. A small divider graphic or a repeated background pattern is decorative. A product photo never is, even a secondary or thumbnail one, because it is very often the only version of that information on the page.
The mistake that undoes the whole exercise
Four things break this even when someone is clearly trying:
- Repeating the exact same alt text across every photo in a multi image listing, which tells a screen reader user nothing about which image they are on
- Stuffing the sentence with every keyword variant a seller wants to rank for, which reads as spam to both a person and a search engine
- Writing alt text that describes the product in general rather than what this specific photo shows, so the front view and the back view get identical descriptions
- Leaving it blank on every image by default, which is the most common version of this mistake and the easiest to fix in bulk
Where this fits alongside the photos themselves
Alt text describes what is already true of the image, it does not fix a photo that is unclear in the first place. A packshot that clearly shows the product needs a short, accurate sentence. A muddy or poorly lit photo needs to be reshot, because no alt text substitutes for detail that was never captured. Get the photo right first, then describe it plainly.
Common questions
- Does alt text actually help SEO for product listings?
- Google's own documentation lists alt text as one of the more useful places to include words a shopper would search for, since it is one of the few pieces of text directly tied to an image. It helps image search visibility specifically, alongside its accessibility purpose, rather than being a major factor in overall page ranking on its own.
- How long should product photo alt text be?
- One short, specific sentence naming the product, the detail this photo shows, and the context. There is no strict character limit, but a screen reader reads it aloud in full, so brevity is a usability requirement, not just a style preference.
- Should I put my brand name in every alt text?
- Only if it is genuinely part of how a shopper would identify the product and it is not already stuffed in on every single image. Repeating a brand name in identical form across every photo on a listing reads as keyword stuffing rather than description.