Alt Tags Simplify Web Browsing

The "alt" tag that is attached to any image in the markup behind any web page is important to have filled out in virtually any circumstance. One commonly cited reason for a given web page to have every one of its alt tags filled with a short description is that it conforms to standards that stipulate that websites supporting a business must be inclusive toward visually impaired users. Users who are blind are able to absorb the contents of websites everywhere using "screen reader" programs that vocally repeat all of the text being displayed on their pages. The existence of alt tag text corresponding to an image on the page is what allows a user making use of assistive technology to both understand that the image is present and be provided a description of what the image actually shows.

A far more generally understood purpose for alt tags, of course, is that they provide contextual terms that search engines' crawlers and spiders can associate with the attached images so that the web pages have more opportunity to appear high in SERPs on account of having those valuable images. If the alt tag for any image is empty, both Google's spiders and users' screen readers will default to relying entirely on its file name for context.

An additional reason for having filled-up alt text that has steadily gained relevance in recent years is that some who use the Internet prefer to load pages without having their images loaded all at once, opting instead to manually display single images of their choosing. This mainly applies to users of mobile devices who are using online plans that either make large files download slowly to begin with or afford the users limited amounts of accessible data throughout a given month. Browsers generally display either the file name or the alt text of an image that has yet to be loaded, so the alt text can serve as a useful label in this case. Ultimately, the only images that should not have alt tags are those that exist purely as decorative elements. For more information click here https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/bxsgl6/seobeforeaftergallerypageimagealt_tags/.