The difference in impressions between alt text coverage buckets is negligible. Alt text is good for accessibility but does not clearly move impressions in our data.
Bottom line: Write alt text for users and image search, not for a sure impressions lift.
The x-axis groups pages by alt text coverage rate (low to high). Each bar shows relative impressions for that coverage bucket. The bars are close in height, so impressions stay flat as coverage rises. The key signal is the lack of a clear upward trend.
Alt text sits at the crossroads of SEO and accessibility. Many SEOs assume higher alt coverage will lift rankings and impressions. Across 19K+ unique pages, impression differences between alt text coverage buckets are tiny. In this dataset, alt coverage does not show a clear impression lift, even at high coverage.
Fix meaningful images first and ignore decorative ones.
Stop screen readers from reading useless image labels.
Set character limits, examples, and keyword-stuffing bans for writers.
Alt work often shows up in image results, not main web impressions.
Cover product, hero, and instructional images first. Missing alt hurts screen reader users and weakens image understanding.
Short alt is easier to scan and less likely to get cut off by assistive tech. Long alt often becomes noise and repeats nearby text.
Say what the image shows in plain words. Keyword-stuffed alt can look spammy and adds no user value.
Decorative images should be skipped by screen readers. Filler alt slows navigation and hurts accessibility.
You spend time writing alt that does not change impressions in this dataset.
Duplicate alt removes useful detail and can confuse image context.
It reads badly for users and usually adds no new information versus on-page copy.
If you use images as navigation or CTAs, alt text matters more than “SEO alt.” Treat it like anchor text. Make it specific to the destination, and keep it different from nearby headings so it adds new meaning.
All data comes from real websites tracked by SEOJuice. We use the latest snapshot per page so each page counts once, regardless of site size. We filter for pages with at least 10 Google Search Console impressions and valid ranking positions (1-100).
Data is refreshed weekly. Correlation does not imply causation — these insights show associations, not guaranteed outcomes.
We compared readability scores against relative impressions across 17K+ unique pages.
We analyzed word counts across 35K+ unique pages and compared relative impressions.
We measured how description-to-content consistency correlates with click-through rates.
SEOJuice tracks all these metrics automatically and helps you improve them.
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