What is alt text and why should I care about it?

Alt text, or an image description, is what shows up in place of an image when that image fails to load. It's also what a screen reader will read out when someone is using a screen reader to browse the site, as well as what search engines and feeds display. With that in mind, it's an important part of web accessibility to include good alt text.

How do I write good alt text?

Everything depends on the context of the image, but there are a few basic guidelines to keep in mind.

As a general rule, if it would be theoretically possible for you to entirely replace your image with the alt text, without your post losing usefulness or clarity, you're good to go.