Most small business websites I look at have the same problem: the images either have no alt text at all, or the alt text says something like IMG_4032.jpg or "image of our team". Screen reader users get nothing useful, and search engines get nothing useful either.

Here's a short, practical way to fix it, with real before-and-after examples.

The one question to ask

For every image, ask: "If this image didn't load, what would I need to say in its place?"

That's your alt text. Not a description of the pixels, but the job the image is doing on the page.

Before and after

A bakery's homepage hero

  • Before: alt="hero.jpg"
  • After: alt="Fresh sourdough loaves cooling on a rack in our Main Street bakery"

A plumber's "About" photo

  • Before: alt="image of man"
  • After: alt="Owner Dave Ruiz in the company van"

A product photo in a shop

  • Before: alt="product"
  • After: alt="Handmade ceramic mug in sage green, 12 oz, with a wide handle"

A logo that links home

  • Before: alt="logo"
  • After: alt="Ruiz Plumbing home". When an image is a link, describe where it goes.

A chart or infographic

  • Before: alt="chart"
  • After: alt="Bar chart: bookings up 40% from March to June", with the full numbers in the text or a table right next to it.

A decorative swirl or divider

  • Before: alt="decorative swirl"
  • After: alt="". An empty alt tells screen readers to skip it entirely. That's correct for purely decorative images.

Quick rules that cover 90% of cases

  1. Don't start with "image of" or "picture of". Screen readers already announce it's an image.
  2. Keep it short. One sentence is usually plenty; around 125 characters is a good soft limit.
  3. Describe purpose, not appearance, unless the appearance is the point (like a product photo).
  4. Text inside images must be in the alt text. If your banner says "20% off this weekend", the alt has to say it too.
  5. Decorative images get alt="", not a missing alt attribute. A missing alt makes some screen readers read the filename out loud.
  6. Don't stuff keywords. "Best plumber Denver plumbing Denver plumber" helps no one and reads terribly.
  7. Don't repeat the caption. If there's a visible caption saying the same thing, keep the alt brief or complementary.

How to check your own site in 5 minutes

  • In Chrome, right-click any page → Inspect, then search the Elements panel for <img and look at each alt.
  • Or run a free Lighthouse audit (DevTools → Lighthouse → Accessibility). It flags images missing alt attributes.
  • Turn on your phone's screen reader (VoiceOver or TalkBack) and swipe through your homepage once. You'll hear exactly what visitors hear.

If you use a site builder

Squarespace, Wix, Shopify and WordPress all have an alt text field when you click an image. It's usually called "Alt text", "Image description" or "Alternative text". It takes about 20 seconds per image to fill in.

Disclosure: I run Fieldnote Studio. If you want this as a short printable PDF with ready-to-adapt examples for small business sites and builder-by-builder steps, I made an Alt Text Cheat Sheet PDF for $12. Everything above is free to use, though, and is honestly enough to fix most sites.