Alt Text Generator

What is the Alt Text Generator?

The Alt Text Generator is a free AI tool that looks at an image and writes alt text for it. Paste the image's URL, add what the page is about if you like, and it returns three options under 125 characters, shortest, balanced and most descriptive, that describe what matters in the image for someone who cannot see it.

How to use the Alt Text Generator

1. Right-click the image, choose Copy image address, and paste the URL. JPEG, PNG, WebP and GIF up to 5 MB work.
2. Add the page context if you want the alt text to fit the page, for example "product page for a hiking backpack".
3. Press Generate alt text and compare the three options.
4. Copy one into the image's alt attribute and edit any detail the model could not know.

What is alt text for images?

Alt text is the written description of an image in its HTML alt attribute: <img src="backpack.jpg" alt="Green 30 litre hiking backpack with side bottle pockets">. Screen readers read it aloud to people who cannot see the image, browsers show it when the image fails to load, and search engines use it to understand what the image shows.

Alt text is required for accessibility under WCAG for every image that carries meaning. Decorative images, such as dividers and background shapes, should have an empty alt="" so screen readers skip them.

How do I write good alt text?

Describe what matters in the image in the context of the page. On a product page that is the product and its key visible features; in a news story it is who is doing what. Keep it under about 125 characters, skip "image of" (screen readers already announce an image), and include any text that appears in the image.

Use a keyword only when it truthfully describes the image. Alt text stuffed with keywords is a poor experience for screen reader users, and search engines treat it as spam. To see whether your pages already have alt text, the On-Page SEO Checker lists images that are missing it.

Does alt text help SEO and AI search?

Yes. Google says alt text is one of the main signals it uses to understand an image, and it drives rankings in Google Images. Many AI crawlers do not process images at all, so for them the alt text is the only description the image has. A product photo with an empty alt attribute is invisible to those systems.

What are examples of good and bad alt text?

Good alt text says what the image shows and why it is on the page; bad alt text is empty, generic or stuffed with keywords. For a product photo of a backpack, alt="IMG_4521.jpg" and alt="backpack" say almost nothing, and alt="hiking backpack best hiking backpack cheap backpack" is keyword stuffing. alt="Green 30 litre hiking backpack with two side bottle pockets" does the job.

The right description depends on the image's job. A chart needs its takeaway, such as alt="Bar chart: sign-ups doubled between March and June", with the full figures in the text or a table. A logo that links to the home page needs the company name. An icon button needs its action, alt="Search", not a description of a magnifying glass. A photo of a sign or a screenshot needs the words it shows.

How do I add alt text in WordPress and Shopify?

In WordPress, open Media, then Library, click the image and fill in the Alternative Text field; that text is filled in wherever you insert the image afterwards. In the block editor you can also select an Image block and set its alternative text in the block settings sidebar, which changes that one placement only. Changing the Media Library field later does not update images already placed in posts; they keep the alt text they were inserted with.

In Shopify, open the product, click the image in its media section and add the alt text in the image's details. Wix, Squarespace and Webflow also have an alt text field in each image's settings. In plain HTML, it is the alt attribute on the <img> tag.

Can ChatGPT generate alt text?

Yes. ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude can all describe an uploaded image, and with a clear prompt they write usable alt text. The prompt is where most of the quality comes from: ask for under 125 characters, no "image of", any visible text included, and no guesses about who a person is.

This generator has those rules built in. It fetches the image from its URL and sends it to a Gemini model with instructions to describe the subject, the action and any text shown, never to guess a person's identity, age, ethnicity or emotions beyond what is plain, and to use your page context only where it is true of the image. Any option over 125 characters is discarded before you see it, and the three that remain come in three lengths, so you can pick the one that suits where the image sits. If you edit an option, the Character Counter checks it still fits.

Do videos need alt text?

Videos do not take alt text in HTML: the <video> element has no alt attribute. Accessibility for video comes from captions for speech and sound, a transcript, and audio description when important information is only shown on screen, which is what WCAG asks of prerecorded video. A short text description next to the video also helps search engines and AI crawlers understand it, and the AI Bot Crawlability Checker shows whether those crawlers can reach the page at all.

Animated GIFs are images, so they take an alt attribute like any other, and this tool accepts GIF URLs. Describe what the animation shows.