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How to Update Alt-Text on Images in Shopify: A Step-by-Step Guide

Alt-text (or alternative text) plays a crucial role in improving the accessibility of your Shopify store, enhancing SEO, and helping your images rank better on search engines. It provides descriptions of images, enabling visually impaired users to understand the content, and it allows search engines to index your images correctly.

In this blog post, we'll walk you through the steps to update alt-text on images in Shopify, so you can improve your site's accessibility and SEO.

Why is Alt-Text Important?

Before we dive into the steps, let’s quickly understand why alt-text matters for your Shopify store:

1. Accessibility: Alt-text allows screen readers to describe images to visually impaired users, making your store more inclusive.
2. SEO Benefits: Search engines can't "see" images the way humans do, but they can read alt-text, which helps with image indexing. This improves your chances of appearing in image search results.
3. Enhanced User Experience: If an image fails to load, the alt-text will display in its place, providing context to users about what should be shown.

Now, let’s get to the step-by-step guide.

Step 1: Log in to Your Shopify Admin

First, log in to your Shopify admin dashboard with your account credentials.

1. Navigate to [your-store-name].myshopify.com/admin.
2. Enter your email address and password to access your store's back-end.

Step 2: Go to the Products Section

Once you're logged in, follow these steps:

1. On the left-hand side menu, click on Products.
2. Here you will see all your product listings. Select the product for which you want to update the image alt-text.

Step 3: Open the Media Section

Once inside the product page:

1. Scroll down until you find the Media section. This is where all the images for that particular product are displayed.
2. Click on the image you wish to update. A new window will open up where you can edit details about the image.

Step 4: Add or Update Alt-Text

Here’s where you can update or add the alt-text for the selected image:

1. In the pop-up window, look for the "Alt" field.

2. Add a clear and descriptive alt-text that accurately represents the image. Ideally, the alt-text should:

• Be concise (about 125 characters or less)
• Describe the image content in a way that makes sense for accessibility and search engines (e.g., "Red leather wallet with gold zipper").
• Avoid keyword stuffing. While it’s beneficial to include keywords, focus on user experience rather than just SEO.

Step 5: Save Your Changes

Once you’ve added or updated the alt-text, click Save in the image pop-up window.

Step 6: Repeat for Other Images

If your product has multiple images, repeat steps 3-5 to update the alt-text for all other images in the Media section.

Step 7: Review Alt-Text Across Your Store

Alt-text should be updated not only for product images but also for images in other parts of your store, such as homepage banners, blog posts, and collection images. You can update these by following a similar process through the Themes section:

1. Go to Online Store > Themes.
2. Click Customize to open the theme editor.
3. Navigate to different sections where images are used, and update their alt-text in the same way.

Best Practices for Alt-Text

Here are some tips to keep in mind when writing alt-text:

• Be Specific: Describe the product or object in detail. If you sell clothes, specify the color, size, and type of garment.
• Context Matters: Think about how the image relates to the surrounding content. If it’s a lifestyle image, describe what’s happening in the scene.
• Avoid Redundancies: Don’t include phrases like "image of" or "picture of" in your alt-text—screen readers already know it's an image.
• Optimize for SEO, but Don't Overdo It: It's tempting to throw in keywords for ranking purposes, but make sure your alt-text sounds natural and serves a purpose for visually impaired users.

Conclusion

Alt-text is a small yet essential part of maintaining a well-optimized and accessible Shopify store. By following the steps above, you can easily update your image alt-text and enhance both user experience and SEO. Make sure to periodically audit your images and alt-text to keep everything up-to-date as your store evolves.

Do you have any questions about alt-text or need help with optimizing your Shopify store? Let us know in the comments below or reach out for personalized support!

By staying on top of best practices for accessibility and SEO, you'll make your store more discoverable and inclusive for all your users, setting the foundation for a successful and user-friendly e-commerce experience.