What is Alt Text Analytics? Examples & Tracking

Alt text analytics

Collects and analyzes image alt text across your website to improve accessibility, SEO, and content quality.

Defining Alt Text Analytics

• What is alt text?

  Alt text is the HTML attribute alt applied to <img> tags, providing textual descriptions of images for accessibility and SEO.

• What is alt text analytics?

  Alt Text Analytics systematically gathers and analyzes alt text data from images to measure quality, completeness, and relevance.

• Key metrics

  Common metrics include missing alt text rate, average alt text length, keyword relevance, and change over time.

  • Missing alt text rate

    The percentage of images without an alt attribute, indicating potential accessibility issues.

  • Average alt text length

    The mean number of characters in alt text, helping assess whether descriptions are too brief or verbose.

  • Keyword relevance

    Analysis of target keywords within alt text to support SEO strategies.

Implementing Alt Text Analytics

• Using PlainSignal

  PlainSignal is a simple, cookie-free analytics tool. You can track alt text by injecting a snippet that scans images and sends custom events.

  • Tracking code

    Add the PlainSignal snippet to your HTML and include a script to scan images:

    <link rel='preconnect' href='//eu.plainsignal.com/' crossorigin />
    <script defer data-do='yourwebsitedomain.com' data-id='0GQV1xmtzQQ' data-api='//eu.plainsignal.com' src='//cdn.plainsignal.com/plainsignal-min.js'></script>
    <script>
      // Scan all images and send alt text events
      document.querySelectorAll('img').forEach(img => {
        const altText = img.alt || '(missing)';
        pi('track', 'alt_text_detected', { alt_text: altText, src: img.src });
      });
    </script>
    

• Using google analytics 4 (GA4)

  GA4 supports custom events to capture alt text data. Use gtag to send an event for each image’s alt attribute.

  • Tracking code

    Insert GA4 config and a script to report alt text:

    <script async src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=GA_MEASUREMENT_ID'></script>
    <script>
      window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
      function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
      gtag('js', new Date());
      gtag('config', 'GA_MEASUREMENT_ID');
      document.querySelectorAll('img').forEach(img => {
        const altText = img.alt || '(missing)';
        gtag('event', 'alt_text_detected', {
          alt_text: altText,
          image_src: img.src
        });
      });
    </script>
    

Benefits and Use Cases

• Seo improvement

  Optimizing alt text for relevant keywords can boost image search rankings and overall page SEO.

• Accessibility compliance

  Detecting missing or insufficient alt text helps ensure your site meets WCAG and ADA accessibility standards.

• Content audit

  Identifying alt text issues across thousands of images simplifies large-scale content audits and updates.

Best Practices and Challenges

• Best practices

  Recommendations to maximize the value of Alt Text Analytics.

  • Use descriptive, concise text

    Write alt text that accurately describes the image without unnecessary words.

  • Automate regular scans

    Schedule automated checks to catch new or updated images with missing or poor alt text.

  • Integrate with workflows

    Embed analytics insights into content creation and review processes for continuous improvement.

• Common challenges

  Issues that teams often face when tracking and optimizing alt text.

  • Dynamic content

    Images loaded asynchronously may be missed by initial scans; ensure your script runs after all content loads.

  • Large media libraries

    Auditing thousands of images can be resource-intensive; consider sampling or incremental reporting.

  • Misleading descriptions

    Ensuring alt text is accurate and not just SEO-focused can require manual review.

Related terms