ALT text

Alternative text – or simply alt – is an attribute of the <img> tag used in the creation of web pages using HTML. Its function is to provide alternative information about image files, which is displayed when an image cannot be loaded.

According to good website development practices, this attribute should never be left blank. This is dictated by the fact that the texts they contain are also read by screen readers used by visually impaired people. For many of them, this is the only way to know the exact content of the portal.

Alternative text completion also has other benefits. This is because it is one of the optimisation methods aimed at improving the position of a given website for specific queries. In this case, one of the selected keywords is usually placed in the alt attribute.

Back to glossary