What is an Alt Attribute in Digital Marketing?

Alt attribute or alternative text is a descriptive text added to the HTML code of an image on a webpage. This text becomes visible when the image isn't able to load on a user's screen. The primary purpose of the alt attribute is to describe the picture to those who can't see it - including visually impaired users or when technical issues prevent the image from displaying.

From a technical perspective, an alt attribute helps search engine bots understand the content of the image, as they can't see pictures but can read text. By analyzing this text, search engines can correctly index the image.

Thus, having appropriate and detailed alt text ensures that no information or functionality is lost, thereby improving website accessibility.

An alt attribute plays a significant role in digital marketing, particularly in SEO. It helps improve website visibility on search engines by providing them with relevant context about the images on a webpage. This practice is paramount as search engines can't analyze images directly.

Additionally, alt attributes enhance the user experience by describing images to visually impaired users using screen readers. It also provides context when images fail to load due to broken links or slow internet connections.

Furthermore, with the rise of image search, proper use of alt attributes can help your images and webpages rank higher, driving more traffic to your site. Therefore, alt attributes contribute significantly to a website's performance and user accessibility.

Here are clear examples of how alt attributes work: Let's say there's an image of a chocolate chip cookie on your website. A correct alt text could be 'alt="Freshly baked chocolate chip cookie"'. This gives search engines context about the image and helpful description to those who can't see the image.

Another instance could be a company logo image. The alt text can then be 'alt ="Company's Logo"'.

If the image is purely decorative and doesn't offer any additional information to the content of the page, then an empty alt attribute 'alt=""' can be used. An empty alt attribute tells screen readers to ignore the image. Understanding and implementing correct usage can help in improving your website's SEO and overall user experience.