How to fix images missing alt on Squarespace

Steps for Squarespace

1. In the Pages panel, open the page and click on an image block to enter edit mode.
2. Click the image, then click the pencil (Edit) icon.
3. In the image editor dialog, click the 'Design' or 'Image' tab and look for the 'Alt Text' field. Enter your description and click 'Apply'.
4. FOR PRODUCT IMAGES (Squarespace Commerce): Go to Commerce > Inventory, open a product, scroll to the images section, hover over an image, click the pencil icon, and fill in the 'Alt Text' field.
5. FOR GALLERY BLOCKS: Click the gallery block > pencil icon > select an individual image > fill in the 'Alt text' field in the image settings.

<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.