Per-check failure index
Missing Image Alt Tags
Alt text is required for accessibility (screen readers) and how images get found in Google Image Search.
Audited
105
Failing
63
Passing
42
What this check looks for
The alt attribute describes what an image shows. Screen readers read it out loud for users who can't see. Google reads it to understand the image and rank it in image search. Skip it and you lose both. The bar is low: write what's in the image in plain language. Skip decorative icons (alt="" is fine for those), describe meaningful images, and don't keyword-stuff.
Quick take
Alt text is the cheapest accessibility-and-SEO win on any technical audit. 30 of the gallery sites here ship pages with images missing alt attributes — more than any other check on the list. The typical site has 8 to 40 images per page. Filling them in is a one-afternoon project that improves screen-reader support and image-search rankings at the same time.
Why this matters
Alt attributes do two jobs at once. They give screen readers something to read out loud for users who can't see the image (required by WCAG 2.1 Level A, which is the legal floor for ADA compliance in the US). And they're how Google indexes images for Image Search, which drives roughly 22% of all search traffic according to Jumpshot's 2018 click-stream data. Skip alt text and you fail an accessibility audit and lose a referral channel. The bar to fix it is low. Three rules cover 95% of the cases.
How to fix it (3 steps)
-
1
Mark decorative images with alt=""
Icons, dividers, background flourishes. They don't carry meaning and a screen reader announcing them every time interrupts the read. Use an explicit empty alt:
alt="". Don't omit the attribute and don't write "decorative image". Both confuse the screen reader. -
2
Describe content images in plain language
Write what the image shows. A product photo: "Blue running shoe with mesh upper, side view." A chart: "US food truck count grew from 4,000 in 2014 to 35,000 in 2024." Skip "image of" or "photo of" prefixes. Google strips those words from the index. Aim for under 125 characters; longer alt text gets cut by some screen readers.
-
3
Make alt text required at upload time
Most missing alt tags come from CMS uploads where the field is optional and the marketer was in a hurry. Make the alt input required on every upload form. New images can't ship without it, so the problem stops growing while you backfill the old ones. WordPress, Webflow, and Sanity all expose this as a one-line schema change.
How-to-fix guide
How to Fix Missing Image Alt Tags
Step-by-step fix with HowTo schema. ~5 min read.
Failing (63)
sorted by overall audit score (worst first)
Passing (42)
sorted by overall audit score (best first)
Other SEO checks in the gallery audit
- Missing Meta Description
- Missing or Weak Title Tag
- Slow Page Speed
- Not Mobile Friendly
- No HTTPS / Missing SSL
- Missing Open Graph Tags
- Missing Canonical URL
- Missing or Misconfigured robots.txt
- Missing XML Sitemap
- Missing Structured Data
- No H1 or Multiple H1s
See the full breakdown across every site on the SaaS SEO Scoreboard.
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