Alt Text, Done Right

If you manage a website—any website—you’ve got hidden opportunities sitting in plain sight: your images.

Most small sites overlook alt text, even though it’s one of the simplest ways to:

• Improve accessibility (ADA/WCAG compliance)

• Strengthen SEO and image visibility

• Signal professionalism and care

Let’s fix that.

What Alt Text Actually Does

Alt text (the alt attribute in an image tag) describes what an image shows and why it’s there.

Copy code
<img src="/logo.svg" alt="StoryPress Logo" />

It’s read aloud by screen readers, displayed if an image can’t load, and scanned by search engines to understand content.

Think of alt text as context, not decoration.

It tells a non-visual visitor what matters about the image in that specific page.

Why It Matters More Than Ever

• Accessibility compliance: Missing alt text remains one of the top accessibility errors online.

  WebAIM’s 2025 study found over 55% of homepages have missing or useless alt text.

• Search performance: Google explicitly says descriptive alt text helps it understand your images and improve visibility in Image Search.

• Usability: When images fail to load (slow networks, email clients, etc.), alt text preserves meaning and flow.

And it’s one of the few things that improve both compliance and SEO in one shot.

5 Rules for Great Alt Text

1. Describe what’s meaningful, not what’s obvious.

   Bad: alt="photo of coffee cup"

   Good: alt="Barista pouring latte art at Bluebird Café counter"

2. Write for context.

   Describe the image in relation to the page’s purpose.

   On a team page, you might note a person’s name; on a tutorial, focus on what’s being demonstrated.

3. Skip “image of” or “picture of.”

   Screen readers already announce that.

4. Keep it concise.

   Aim for one short sentence (~100–125 characters).

5. Mark decorative images with empty alt (alt="").

   That tells screen readers to skip them, reducing noise.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Filenames as alt: alt="IMG_4321.jpg"

• Keyword stuffing: alt="best custom website builder affordable small business website builder"

• Repeating captions verbatim

• Describing aesthetics only: “Beautiful stock photo of…” is useless to users.

How to Make Alt Text Easier (and Automatic)

Here’s the part most people miss: you don’t have to write every alt tag by hand.

Tools like n8n, AI captioning models, and StoryPress’s structured image fields make it possible to generate and validate alt text in batches.

A StoryPress user recently built a flow that:

• Pulls all images from a Lightroom library

• Uses AI to generate context-appropriate alt descriptions

• Syncs them back into their Storyblok CMS account

We’ll cover that full automation—step by step—in our next post, with a downloadable n8n template ready to plug into your StoryPress site.

For now, the key idea: structure your content and metadata well.

StoryPress already gives you the fields (image alt, caption, title). The rest is process.

Quick Checklist for Every Page

Before you publish:

• Every meaningful image has descriptive alt text

• Decorative images use alt=""

• No filenames, no keyword stuffing

• Captions complement, not duplicate, the alt

• Run a Lighthouse or WAVE audit—score should jump immediately

Why This Matters for StoryPress Users

StoryPress sites are built with clarity and accessibility baked in—SEO, analytics, and lead capture ready by default.

Adding thoughtful alt text simply finishes the job.

And because StoryPress integrates seamlessly with Storyblok, any automation you connect (like n8n or AI captioning) can write directly to the image fields you already use.

That’s power, without the complexity.

Next Up

Coming soon:

“Automate Your Alt Text: How to Build an n8n Flow That Tags Every Image in Storyblok.”

We’ll include a downloadable template and guide you through connecting it to your StoryPress account.

Bottom Line

If you want a fast, low-cost way to improve your site’s accessibility and SEO, start with your images.

One hour spent fixing alt text can make your site more discoverable, more compliant, and more human.

— your images (and users) will thank you.