How do I add alt text to my images?
The Alt text page lists your product images, blog post covers and images inside pages and posts that have no alt text. Get a free suggestion or import Sidekick's drafts, check them, then Save. Undo lasts 90 days.
Alt text is the short description a screen reader reads aloud, and that search engines read, in place of an image. Open AI readiness and the Alt text tile, or a tile marked Fix for alt text. The page lists the images on your store with no alt text, from SignalLane's own copy, and says when it last checked them. Sync in the Actions menu reads them again.
The three tabs
- Product images: the images on your live products. Images on draft or hidden products are left out unless you tick Include images on draft or hidden products.
- Blog post covers: the featured image of each published blog post.
- Images inside pages and posts: the images in the text of your published pages and blog posts.
By default the list shows the images with no alt text. Its filter also offers All images, Has a suggestion, Saved by SignalLane and Imported drafts, and you can search by title. Covers and images in pages need the optional permission to read your pages and blog posts.
Choose how to write
Under How do you want to write alt text? pick one of three cards. Your choice is remembered:
- From your product titles (free): tick the images, press Suggest from titles, then Save selected. On the other tabs the card names your blog post titles, or your page and post titles.
- Import from Sidekick (free): Shopify Sidekick writes drafts into a file you import here. How to import Sidekick's drafts.
- Write with AI: tick the images and press Write with AI; each usable description uses 1 AI credit. About AI credits.
Every suggestion appears in the row's Suggested alt text box, where you can change it. Nothing changes in your store until you tick images and press Save selected.
Save and Undo
Save asks once, with the number of images it will change. You can save up to 5,000 images at a time. An image used on several products is changed everywhere it appears, and the question says so. Before each change SignalLane reads the image's current alt text and keeps it, so Undo on a row, or Undo this save, puts it back for 90 days. If the alt text was changed in Shopify while SignalLane was saving, or after, SignalLane leaves it as it is and says so on the row.
Saving needs one more optional permission: Allow file editing for product images, and Allow content editing for covers and images in pages and posts. Without it, SignalLane still lists your images, suggests descriptions and keeps your edits.
New product images
Turn on Also fill new product images automatically to give product images added from now on a description when they have none. It never changes a description that exists, a very large batch is filled gradually, over several hours if needed, and each one can be undone for 90 days.
Questions and answers
- Does SignalLane change my images?
- Only their alt text, and only when you press Save selected (or turn on automatic fill). It never uploads, replaces, renames or deletes an image.
- An image is decorative. Does it need alt text?
- No. Press Dismiss on its row. Nothing is written to your store, and Show again undoes it.
- Can I write alt text with AI?
- Yes. Choose the Write with AI card: each usable description uses 1 AI credit, and you check each one before it is saved. Automatic fill with AI, if you turn it on, saves alt text for new product images without that step; you can undo any of it for 90 days.
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