Adding Alt Text to Images With AI on Squarespace

When building a website, especially one filled with images, it's crucial to make sure that each image is properly described. 

This is where alt text (alternative text) comes in. If you're new to the term, alt text is a description added to images on a website, which is used by screen readers for visually impaired users and Google’s crawlers.

In addition to improving accessibility, alt text is also a powerful SEO tool. Search engines use alt text to understand the content of images and rank them accordingly in search results. 

But adding alt text to every image manually can be a time-consuming task, especially on a site with many images. 

Luckily, Squarespace has rolled out an AI-driven tool that simplifies this process significantly.

In this post, I’ll show you how to use Squarespace’s AI-powered tool to add alt text to your images quickly and efficiently.

Watch the video

Check out the YouTube video below 👇

What is Alt Text and Why is It Important for SEO?

Alt text serves multiple purposes:

• Accessibility: It allows screen readers to describe images for people with visual impairments.

• SEO: It provides search engines with a description of the images, helping them rank in search results. By adding keywords to your alt text, you can improve your site's overall SEO.

How to Use Squarespace’s AI Tool to Add Alt Text

1. Navigate to Your SEO Settings. First, log into your Squarespace site and go to the Settings menu. From there, click on Marketing and then SEO Appearance. This is where you'll find Squarespace’s new AI tool that helps automate the process of adding alt text to images.

2. AI Alerts and Image Overview. Once you're in the SEO Appearance section, you’ll see an overview of your site’s SEO health. If your images are missing alt text, the tool will alert you, showing the number of images that still need descriptions. For example, it might say something like “3 out of 18 images are missing alt text.”

3. Generate Alt Text with AI. To generate alt text, simply click Improve with AI. Squarespace will then show all the images on your site that are missing alt text, along with AI-generated descriptions. The AI will analyze the image and provide a description, like “person with curly hair and hoop earrings looking upwards, wearing a white tank top against a dark background.”

If you want to fine-tune this description with more specific keywords (for example, if the image is related to an acting class, you can edit it to say “person with curly hair and hoop earrings looking upwards in an acting class”), you can do so easily.

4. Refining the Alt Text. You can choose to edit each alt text entry manually or regenerate the text using the AI tool. If the AI suggestion is accurate but needs refinement, simply edit the text as you wish. This flexibility makes it easy to ensure that the alt text reflects both the content of the image and the relevant keywords for your SEO strategy.

5. Save and Optimize. After reviewing and editing the alt text for each image, click Save. Once saved, you’ll get a green checkmark confirming that all your images now have alt text, making your website both more accessible and SEO-friendly.

---

📩 Join the inner circle to get exclusive code updates

---

Benefits of Using AI-Generated Alt Text for SEO

• Time-Saving: Instead of manually adding alt text to each image, Squarespace’s AI tool automates the process, making it faster and more efficient.

• Improved SEO: With accurate alt text, your images will rank better in image search results, boosting the SEO of your entire website.

• Accessibility: Ensuring that your images have proper alt text makes your website more inclusive for visually impaired visitors.

• Ease of Use: The user-friendly interface allows you to review, edit, and save alt text in a few clicks, all from a single hub.

Conclusion

Squarespace’s AI-powered SEO tools, particularly the alt text generator, are a game-changer for website owners. They provide an easy way to ensure that all your images are accessible to people with disabilities and optimized for search engines, all without spending hours manually adding alt text.

If you’re looking to improve your website’s SEO and accessibility, using this AI-powered tool is a must. Whether you're a business owner or a creative professional, having properly optimized images can significantly boost your site’s performance in search results and make it more user-friendly.

---

Your designer

I'm Sam, an award-winning Squarespace web designer. I have worked with every type of business, building platforms for solo entrepreneurs through to multi-million dollar corporations. If you want to discuss a potential project, you can email on sam@bycrawford.com or get in touch with me here. Alternatively, you can book in a free 15-minute consultation call here.

---

Want more?