How to fix image alt on WooCommerce

Steps for WooCommerce

1. **Product images:** WP Admin → Products → select a product → click the featured image or gallery image thumbnail → in the Media Library modal, fill in the 'Alt Text' field on the right panel → click 'Update'.
2. **Media Library bulk update:** WP Admin → Media → Library → click any image → fill in the 'Alternative Text' field in the right panel.
3. **For bulk editing:** Install the free plugin 'Bulk Auto Image Alt Tag' or 'SEO Optimized Images' to audit and fill missing alt text across all media at once.
4. **Hardcoded images in theme files:** In your child theme, locate the template file (e.g., `single-product.php`) and add `alt` attributes directly to any `<img>` tags.
5. **Page builder images (Elementor/Divi):** Edit the page → click the image widget → find the 'Alt Text' or 'Alternative Text' field in the widget settings panel.

<img src="blue-leather-wallet.jpg" alt="Blue leather wallet with card slots, open view">

<!-- Decorative image — intentionally empty alt -->
<img src="divider-ornament.png" alt="">

What is image alt?

Every image on a webpage can carry a short text description called "alt text" (alternative text), written inside the image's HTML tag as `alt="your description here"`. When an image has no `alt` attribute at all, assistive technologies like screen readers — used by people who are blind or have low vision — have nothing to announce, so they may read out a raw file name like "img_38472.jpg" or skip the image entirely. WCAG Success Criterion 1.1.1 ("Non-text Content") requires that all meaningful images have a text alternative, and decorative images are explicitly marked as decorative using an empty `alt=""` so they are silently skipped.

**Accessibility & legal risk:** Failing WCAG 1.1.1 is one of the most commonly cited issues in accessibility lawsuits and demand letters under the ADA (US), AODA (Canada), EAA (EU), and similar laws worldwide. A single missing `alt` attribute on a product image can be enough to trigger a complaint. **SEO & organic traffic:** Search engine crawlers cannot "see" images — they rely entirely on alt text to understand image content. Well-written alt text helps your product images rank in Google Image Search and reinforces keyword relevance on product and category pages, driving incremental organic traffic. **Conversions:** When images fail to load (slow connections, CDN errors), the alt text is displayed in place of the image, keeping shoppers informed about what they were looking at and reducing bounce rate.

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