---
title: "Alt text (alternative text): meaning in product photography | Herofab"
description: "A short written description attached to an image on a web page. Screen readers read it aloud, and search engines use it to understand the image."
url: https://herofab.app/glossary/alt-text
language: en
updated: 2026-10-07
---

# Alt text

A short written description attached to an image on a web page. Screen readers read it aloud, and search engines use it to understand the image.

Also called **alternative text** · **alt attribute** · **image description**

![Model wearing the tan knitted crew-neck sweater with dark trousers on a white background](https://herofab.app/img/ex/knit-model-886.webp)

Made with Herofab · Virtual try-on

Alt text stands in for the image wherever the image cannot be seen: for a shopper using a screen reader, on a slow connection where pictures fail to load, and for a search engine indexing the page. In a webshop it is a field of its own beside each product image.

Useful alt text says what the picture shows, in a plain sentence: the product, its colour and material, and the view, such as a navy wool coat seen from the front on a model. It does not repeat the product title word for word, and it is not a list of keywords.

Each image of a gallery deserves a description of its own, because the front view, the back view and the detail of a cuff show different things. On marketplaces the field is often missing, and the title and attributes do this work; in a seller's own shop the alt text is the seller's to write.

## Alt text, answered.

**Does alt text help product images show up in search?**

It helps, as one signal among several. Search engines read alt text together with the page around the image, the file name and the image itself to decide what a picture shows, and an accurate description supports that. A list of keywords does not, and it makes the page worse for shoppers who hear the text read aloud.

**How long should the alt text of a product image be?**

One short sentence or phrase is enough. A screen reader reads the whole text aloud in one go, so the product, its colour and the view should come first and anything beyond that be left to the product description. Phrases such as image of or picture of add nothing, because the screen reader already announces that it is an image.

Updated 5 October 2026

[Product studio](https://herofab.app/tools/product-photography) · [Virtual try-on](https://herofab.app/tools/virtual-try-on) · [Main image](https://herofab.app/glossary/main-image) · [On-model image](https://herofab.app/glossary/on-model-image) · [All terms](https://herofab.app/glossary/)