How to Add Alt Text to an Image in a WordPress Post

If you’ve been trying to learn about SEO while you work on your WordPress blog, you likely encountered a lot of information and tips for ways that you should write your posts. Many of these tips include things like using specific types of headings, or word counts or keyword densities, but you may have also found that many recommend using alt text for your images.

Alt text is an important thing to include when you add a picture to your post. If someone is using a screen reader to consume your content, then that reader will also read the alt text for the image, thereby ensuring that the person knows what the image is about. Additionally, should the picture fail to load in a browser, at least the alt text can let the reader know what was supposed to be there.

How to Add Alt Text to a Picture in a WordPress Post

The steps in this article were performed in the 5.2.2 version of WordPress, using the Gutenberg editor. Note that adding alt text using the method described below will only add that alt text for the specific post where you are adding the picture. If you use the picture in another post, you will need to include alt text there as well.

Step 1: Sign into the admin section of your WordPress site at (yourdomain.com)/wp-admin.

Step 2: Hover over the Posts tab, then either create a new post or open an existing one.

Step 3: Select the picture in the post to which you wish to add alt text, or click the small + button, choose the Image block, then upload a picture.

Step 4: Click on the picture in the post to select it, then type your alt text into the Alt text field in the column at the right side of the window.

Did you add pages and categories to your menu, but some of the anchor text is not helpful, or contains too many characters? Find out how to change anchor text for a menu link on one of the menus your site.