I ignored alt text for two years. It felt like busywork — typing descriptions for images that customers could already see. Who reads alt text?
Then I looked at my Google Search Console data and noticed something: 15% of my organic traffic was coming from Google Image Search. And every single one of those clicks was landing on a product with no alt text, which meant Google was guessing what my images showed based on file names and surrounding page content.
My file names were things like "IMG_4521.jpg" and "product-photo-final-v3.jpg." Google was guessing badly.
The Experiment
I added descriptive alt text to all 200 product images across my Shopify store. Took about 3 hours (roughly one minute per image). Then I waited 30 days and compared the data.
What I Wrote
Bad alt text: "product image" or "photo of product" or just the product name repeated.
Good alt text: a specific, natural description of what's in the image.
Examples from my store:
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Before: "leather wallet"
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After: "brown full-grain leather bifold wallet, open to show six card slots and bill compartment"
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Before: "earrings product photo"
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After: "gold-plated hoop earrings with hammered texture, shown on white background, approximately 2cm diameter"
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Before: "IMG_7823.jpg" (no alt text at all)
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After: "handmade ceramic mug in sage green glaze, 12oz capacity, shown from the side with handle visible"
The pattern: describe the product specifically, include material/color/size when relevant, mention the angle or view if it's not obvious.
The Results (30 Days)
Google Image Search traffic: +40%
That was the headline number. But the breakdown was more interesting:
- Impressions in Image Search: +65% (Google was showing my images for more queries)
- Click-through rate from Image Search: -15% (more impressions but not all were relevant)
- Net clicks from Image Search: +40%
- New keywords appearing in Image Search: 47 (queries I'd never ranked for before)
The new keywords were things like "brown leather bifold wallet open" and "sage green ceramic mug handmade." Long-tail, high-intent queries that I wasn't targeting in my page content but was now ranking for through image alt text.
The SEO Mechanics
Google uses alt text for three things:
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Understanding image content. Without alt text, Google relies on file names, surrounding text, and visual AI to guess what's in the image. With alt text, you're telling Google directly.
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Image Search ranking. Alt text is a primary ranking factor for Google Image Search. Descriptive alt text = more relevant image search results = more traffic.
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Page relevance signals. Alt text contributes to the overall topical relevance of your page. A product page with alt text describing "brown leather wallet" reinforces to Google that this page is about brown leather wallets.
The Accessibility Angle
Alt text isn't just for SEO. It's how screen readers describe images to visually impaired users. About 2.2 billion people globally have some form of vision impairment. If your product images don't have alt text, those potential customers can't understand what you're selling.
Beyond being the right thing to do, accessibility compliance is increasingly a legal requirement. The ADA applies to e-commerce websites, and missing alt text is one of the most common accessibility violations cited in lawsuits.
My Alt Text Formula
After writing 200 of these, I developed a formula:
[Material/Color] [Product Type] [Key Feature], [View/Angle], [Size if relevant]
Examples:
- "Stainless steel water bottle with bamboo lid, front view, 750ml"
- "Navy blue cotton t-shirt with crew neck, flat lay on white background, size medium"
- "Rose gold pendant necklace with cubic zirconia stone, close-up of pendant detail"
Keep it under 125 characters (screen readers may truncate longer text). Be specific but natural — write it like you're describing the image to someone who can't see it.
Common Mistakes
Keyword stuffing. "Leather wallet brown wallet men's wallet bifold wallet best wallet" — this hurts more than it helps. Google recognizes stuffing and may penalize you.
Generic descriptions. "Product image" or "Photo" tells Google nothing. Every image on the internet is a "photo."
Duplicate alt text. Using the same alt text for all angles of the same product. Each image should have a unique description that reflects what that specific image shows.
Forgetting lifestyle images. Your lifestyle/in-use images need alt text too. "Woman wearing gold hoop earrings with black dress, outdoor setting" is much better than "lifestyle photo."
The Time Investment
200 images × ~1 minute each = about 3 hours. I did it over three evenings while watching TV. Not glamorous work, but the ROI was clear within 30 days.
For new products, I now write alt text as part of my upload workflow. It adds maybe 30 seconds per image. I use pic1.ai for the image processing and then add alt text when uploading to Shopify.
If you have hundreds of products and no alt text, start with your best sellers. The 80/20 rule applies — your top 20% of products probably drive 80% of your traffic. Alt-text those first and work outward.
For broader image SEO, read about ranking in Google Shopping and Image Search. And if page speed is also a concern, here's how I fixed my store's PageSpeed score of 23.