Free Alt Text Generator (+ Guide)

What is an alt text generator?

An alt text generator is a tool that writes the alt text for an image by looking at it.

This one gives you:

• One sentence of alt text – what matters in the image, in plain words.
• A character count – with a warning past 125 characters.
• The HTML – an img tag with the alt text in it, ready to paste.

Add your page's topic and it describes the image in that context.

Why alt text matters

Alt text does two jobs at once.

For accessibility, WCAG's first rule for images asks that every image with meaning has a text alternative, so someone using a screen reader gets the same information.

For search, Google's own image guide says it uses alt text to understand what an image shows, and as the link text when an image is a link.

That's why I write it for a person first, and the search benefit follows.

How to write good alt text

I follow four rules:

1. Describe what matters, not every detail, like "Navid working on a laptop on a boat at sea".
2. Skip "image of", because the screen reader already says it's an image.
3. Keep it short, about one sentence and under about 125 characters.
4. Fit the page, so the same photo can get different alt text on different pages.

If the image has words in it that matter, put the words in the alt text too.

When an image shouldn't have alt text

A purely decorative image, like a background pattern or a divider, gets an empty alt attribute: alt="".

That tells screen readers to skip it, which WCAG asks for, so they don't read out something that adds nothing.

Leaving the alt attribute out completely is different, and worse, since some screen readers then read the file name.

How to use the alt text generator

It takes about a minute:

1. Add your image. Drop it in, paste it, choose a file or use a link.
2. Add the page's topic. It's optional, but it makes the alt text fit.
3. Write the alt text. It takes a few seconds.
4. Copy it or copy the HTML. Then check your page with the SEO checker, which flags images missing alt text.

Your image is shrunk in your browser first and isn't kept anywhere.

Who is the alt text generator for?

It's for anyone who puts images on the web:

• SEO checker – site owners finding every image that's missing alt text
• Title and meta checker – anyone tidying up a page before it goes live
• Image caption generator – creators who need a caption for the same image
• Image to prompt generator – anyone making more images in the same style

And if you have a lot of images, start with the ones on your most visited pages.