How to fix images missing alt on WooCommerce

Steps for WooCommerce

1. FOR PRODUCT IMAGES: In the WordPress admin, go to Products > All Products, open a product, scroll to the 'Product image' box (bottom right), click the image, then click the pencil (Edit) icon. In the Attachment Details panel that appears, fill in the 'Alt Text' field and click 'Update'.
2. FOR GALLERY IMAGES: On the same product page, scroll to 'Product gallery', click a gallery image's pencil icon, and fill in the Alt Text field.
3. FOR ALL MEDIA LIBRARY IMAGES: Go to Media > Library, click any image, and update the 'Alternative Text' field in the right-hand Attachment Details panel.
4. FOR BULK EDITS: Install the free 'SEO Optimized Images' plugin or use 'Rank Math SEO' / 'Yoast SEO' which include bulk alt-text tools under their SEO > Tools menus.
5. FOR CONTENT IMAGES: When editing a page or post in the Block Editor, click an Image block and fill in the 'Alt text (alternative text)' field in the right-hand Block settings panel.

<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.