How to fix images missing alt on BigCommerce

Steps for BigCommerce

1. FOR PRODUCT IMAGES: Go to Products > View, open a product, scroll to the Images section, click the image you want to edit, and enter descriptive text in the 'Alt Text' field. Save the product.
2. FOR CONTENT/PAGE IMAGES: Go to Storefront > Web Pages, open a page, click the image in the rich-text (WYSIWYG) editor, click the 'Image' toolbar button, and update the 'Image Description (Alt Text)' field.
3. FOR BANNER/CAROUSEL IMAGES: Go to Storefront > Image Manager or Marketing > Banners, select the image/banner, and complete the alt text field in the settings.
4. FOR BULK UPDATES: Use the BigCommerce Products API or export products via a CSV (Products > Export), add alt text in the image_alt_text column, and re-import.

<img src="border-collie-harness.jpg" alt="Black and white Border Collie wearing a red padded harness in a sunny park">

What is images missing alt?

Alt text (short for "alternative text") is a brief written description attached to an image in your website's code. It looks like this: `<img src="dog-collar.jpg" alt="Red leather dog collar with brass buckle">`. When a browser can't display an image — or when a screen reader reads your page aloud for a visually impaired shopper — the alt text is what gets used instead. Search engines like Google also read alt text because they cannot "see" images the way humans do; it is their primary clue about what an image shows.

Google explicitly uses alt text to understand image content and to rank pages in both standard search results and Google Images — missing alt text means your product and content images are essentially invisible to search engines, costing you organic traffic. For shoppers using screen readers (a legal requirement in many markets under ADA, WCAG 2.1, and the EU Web Accessibility Directive), images without alt text create a broken experience that can expose your business to accessibility lawsuits. On product pages specifically, descriptive alt text reinforces your target keywords in context, supporting your overall on-page SEO without keyword stuffing. Fixing missing alt text is one of the fastest, highest-return SEO and accessibility improvements you can make.

See the complete Images missing alt guide for every platform and the full background.