Add descriptive alt text to every image

1-2 hr Impact: medium Effort: medium ✓ Scan-verified — no manual checkbox

Alt text describes an image for anyone who can't see it — screen reader users, and search engine crawlers that can't visually interpret images at all — meaning a missing alt attribute both excludes real users and gives Google zero information about what that image actually shows.

Alt text describes images to screen readers and to Google Images, which is a real source of traffic. Missing alt text forfeits image search visibility and hurts accessibility.

How to fix it

1

Audit your images for missing alt text

Check your CMS media library or page source for images with no alt attribute at all.
2

Write specific, descriptive alt text

Describe what the image actually shows and its purpose on the page — "photo of blue running shoes on white background," not "image1.jpg."
3

Use empty alt text for purely decorative images

alt="" (not omitted entirely) tells screen readers to skip a genuinely decorative image, rather than reading a meaningless filename aloud.
4

Don't keyword-stuff

Alt text should describe the image accurately — cramming keywords in that don't match what's shown reads as manipulative to both users and Google.

Common mistakes

A generic alt text like 'image' or the literal filename on every image is barely better than no alt text at all — it needs to be genuinely specific to that image to have real value.

How you'll know it's done

Every meaningful image has specific, descriptive alt text; purely decorative images use an empty alt attribute.

H.I.V.E. checks this automatically

Fix it, then re-scan — the check confirms itself. No manual checkbox, the scan is the truth.

Run this check in H.I.V.E. →

Add descriptive alt text to every image

How to fix it

Common mistakes

How you'll know it's done

Related checks

H.I.V.E. checks this automatically