How to Add Alt Text in Shopify (2026)

Key takeaways

• Product images: go to Products → select product → click the image → edit alt text in the side panel.
• Theme images: Theme Editor → select the image block → alt text field in settings.
• Good alt text describes what’s in the image and includes relevant keywords naturally.
• Blank alt text is a missed SEO opportunity and an accessibility failure.

Alt text serves two purposes in Shopify: it helps search engines understand what your images show (which can drive image search traffic), and it provides a text description for screen readers used by visually impaired shoppers. Both are worth getting right.

How do I add alt text in Shopify?

The location varies depending on where the image lives.

Product images

1. Go to Products in your Shopify admin
2. Select the product
3. Hover over the image you want to edit — a small pencil icon appears
4. Click the pencil icon (or click the image directly)
5. The Alt text field appears in the side panel
6. Write your alt text and click Save

Repeat for every image on the product, including variant images and gallery images.

Collection images

1. Products → Collections → select the collection
2. Click the collection image
3. Edit the alt text field and save

Pages and blog posts (uploaded images)

1. Online Store → Pages → select the page
2. Click the image in the content editor
3. Look for the alt text field in the image editing toolbar

Theme images (in the Theme Editor)

1. Online Store → Themes → Customize
2. Click the section containing the image
3. In the right settings panel, find the image block
4. Look for the Alt text field — it’s usually directly below the image selector

Files section images

Images uploaded directly to Settings → Files don’t have an alt text field. If you use these images in your theme, the alt text must be added in the Liquid template where the image is rendered.

How do I insert alt text?

Click on any image in Shopify’s admin and look for the alt text field in the editing panel. It’s a plain text field — just type your description and save. There are no formatting options.

How to write good alt text

Describe what’s actually in the image

The first rule: describe what you see. If the image shows a brown leather wallet open to reveal the card slots, say “Brown leather bifold wallet open showing six card slots.”

Don’t use generic alt text like “product image” or “photo” — this is worse than no alt text because it’s actively misleading.

Include relevant keywords naturally

For product images, the keyword you want to rank for should appear in the alt text if it genuinely describes what’s shown. “Men’s brown leather bifold wallet with RFID blocking” is accurate AND keyword-rich.

The key word is “naturally.” Don’t stuff keywords: “leather wallet brown mens RFID bifold wallet buy online” is keyword stuffing and provides no value.

Keep it under 125 characters

Screen readers often cut off alt text around 125 characters. Write concisely.

Don’t start with “Image of” or “Photo of”

Screen readers already announce that it’s an image. Starting with “Image of…” is redundant. Go straight to the description.

Decorative images can have empty alt text

Purely decorative images — background patterns, dividers, icons that have text labels — should have empty alt text (alt=""). This tells screen readers to skip the image entirely. Don’t add filler alt text to decorative images; it creates noise for screen reader users.

Bulk alt text editing in Shopify

For large product catalogs, editing alt text product by product is slow. Options:

Shopify’s bulk editor. Products → select products → Edit products. The bulk editor doesn’t currently show an alt text column natively — you’d need an app for bulk alt text editing.

SEO apps. Apps like Plug In SEO, SEO Image Optimizer, and TinyIMG include bulk alt text editing. Some can auto-generate alt text using templates like [Product Title] - [Store Name].

CSV export/import. Shopify’s product CSV export doesn’t include image alt text as a column. An app or API is needed for true bulk alt text management.

Does alt text help Shopify SEO?

Yes, in several ways:

Google Image Search. Well-written alt text helps your product images appear in Google Image Search results, which can drive additional discovery traffic.

Keyword signals. Alt text is one of many on-page signals Google uses to understand a page’s topic. It won’t make or break rankings on its own, but consistent, accurate alt text across your product images supports your overall page relevance.

Accessibility compliance. In some jurisdictions, accessible websites are a legal requirement for e-commerce businesses. Missing alt text is one of the most common accessibility failures.

Checking your alt text coverage

Use Shopify’s built-in audit by installing Plug In SEO (free tier available) — it flags all images missing alt text across your store. Google Search Console can also surface image indexing issues related to poor alt text. For more detail on adding alt text to every image type, see how to add alt text to images in Shopify.