How Do I Optimize Alt Text for Images On My Design Firm’s Site?

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If your design firm’s website is image-heavy (which, let’s be honest, it should be), your photos are doing a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to capturing potential clients’ attention. But they’re probably doing nothing for your SEO unless you’ve taken time to write alt text—and write it well. Most interior designers have never heard of it. Or if they have, they assume it’s some kind of tech jargon for developers to worry about. But you need to know what alt image text is because it plays an important role in exposing your work to the right people online.

Why Alt Text Matters in 2025

In 2025, how people find your work online is just as important as the quality of the work itself.

If you’re still thinking of Google search as a list of blue links ranked by who used the right keywords the most, you’re already behind. Platforms like Google’s AI Overviews, Bing Copilot, and even Instagram’s evolving visual search tools are shifting the paradigm. Search is more semantic, more visual, and—importantly—more dependent on structured, descriptive, and accessible digital content.

This is why alt text is so important.

When we talk about alt text for images, we’re not just talking about a technical tag buried in HTML. We’re talking about how you, an interior designer, communicate the aesthetic, context, and content of a space to two very important audiences: search engines and screen readers. Search engines need a text equivalent to understand and index your images, while screen readers deliver that same information to users with visual impairments.

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Alt Text and the AI Shift

Search is becoming less about keyword matching and more about relevance, structure, and intent. Say someone asks “What does a Japandi-style living room actually look like?”, “What’s the difference between a high-gloss lacquer kitchen and a matte finish one?”, or Show me examples of minimalist family homes with natural wood tones.”

When this happens, AI tools pull snippets, visual content, and structured data from across the web to answer those queries. If your website uses descriptive alt text—clearly written, appropriately structured, and connected to your page content—there’s a good chance your image appears in image search results, AI-generated galleries, or even Google Images packs.

So What Is Alt Text, Technically?

Alt text (short for alternative text) is added to an image’s HTML via the alt attribute. It exists to describe what the image conveys when it can’t be seen—whether because of poor internet connection, use of screen reading tools, or because a search engine is crawling the page for relevance.

Here’s what a basic implementation looks like in code: <img src=”kitchen.jpg” alt=”Transitional kitchen with navy shaker cabinets, brass hardware, and quartz countertops”>.

When used correctly, alt text helps search engines understand what your visual content represents, provides screen reader users with context and detail, improves your overall SEO strategy by aligning image content with the surrounding page content, and ensures that your images are usable and meaningful even when the image fails to load.

Alt Text vs. Alt Tags (and Other Misconceptions)

First, a quick terminology correction: “alt tag” is a common misnomer. What you’re actually writing is an alt attribute within an <img> tag. It’s not metadata and it’s not a caption. In fact, many images on your site should have alt text—unless they’re purely decorative (more on that below). Empty alt text is okay if for decorative images.

Alt text need not include “Picture of…” or “Image of…” because screen readers read the word “image” already and it doesn’t help with web accessibility. Try to also avoid long, flowery sentences; aim for concise alt text, ideally under 125 characters. You don’t need irrelevant or repeated information, either; describe the image, not just the project name.

Good Alt Text Is Contextual, Not Generic

Put simply, helpful alt text is contextual. One of the most common mistakes we see in digital portfolios is generic alt text like “living room” or “interior design photo.” These phrases aren’t helpful to either search engines or users.

A better approach is to describe the image in context. Think about:

• The style and palette (e.g., “Scandinavian nursery with pale wood crib and tonal wallpaper”)
• The materiality (e.g., “Concrete floors with custom walnut cabinetry and fluted glass partitions”)
• The atmosphere or concept the image supports (e.g., “Dark, moody guest bath with unlacquered brass and dramatic stone sink”)

This kind of meaningful alt text helps visually impaired readers, supports your SEO efforts, and signals to Google that you understand how to structure helpful alt text that contributes to user experience. You want the alt text description to match the image and the context, whether that is a specific project or a blog post.

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What About Decorative and Background Images?

Some images—like CSS background images, icons, or decorative flourishes—do not require alt text. In those cases, use an empty alt attribute (alt=””) to signal that the image is not relevant to the content. This tells screen readers to skip it, and it helps prevent noise in the accessibility layer of your web page.

But be careful: not every “simple” image is decorative and can do without appropriate alt text. A marble backsplash might look like ornamentation, but if it helps explain a trend, material, or design move, it deserves a descriptive text alternative.

How to Optimize Alt Text Without Overdoing It

Here’s where a lot of well-meaning design firms go wrong: they finally commit to adding alt text… and then go way too far. They treat every image like it needs to carry the weight of an entire portfolio project. Or worse, they cram the alt attribute with as many SEO keywords as possible, hoping it’ll boost rankings. Neither approach works well.

But first, what is SEO?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization; it is a set of strategies that help your website appear in search results when people look for services like yours. SEO makes your content easier for both humans and search engines to understand.

That means structuring your pages clearly, using the right keywords, and—yes—adding descriptive alt text to your images. When done well, SEO helps the right clients find you faster.

Now, Back to Optimizing Alt Image Text

As we noted above, alt text isn’t content. It’s context. It’s meant to quietly support an image in its digital environment. Alt text best practices are to write brief but descriptive, relevant but not repetitive, specific but not overly detailed image descriptions.

Remember, you’re not writing an image description for a human editor or for Google alone—you’re writing for both. That’s why it needs to communicate what the image conveys without overwhelming, distracting, or diluting the user experience.

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To ensure your alt text is optimized as an interior design firm, focus on writing clear, concise descriptions that reflect both the visual elements of the image and the context of the page it appears on. Prioritize optimizing alt text for portfolio images, before-and-afters, design process visuals, and any styled photography that showcases your aesthetic or technical approach.

These are the images most likely to show up in search results, support your SEO goals, and offer value to users navigating with screen readers. Avoid keyword stuffing; just describe what the image actually depicts in a way that aligns with your overall content strategy.

Final Thoughts: Where to Start

Audit your site. Review your homepage, service pages, and portfolio. For each image, ask yourself the following questions.

• Does this image support the page content?
• If this image fails to load, will the alt text help the user understand what they’re missing?
• Will this image be meaningful to someone who uses screen readers?
• Can I write effective alt text that describes the image without repeating the caption or headline?
• Does the alt text description offer value, context, or a sense of the space shown?

If the answer is yes, it’s worth taking the time to edit alt text or add it where you’re missing alt text.

Written by the DesignDash Editorial Team
Our contributors include experienced designers, firm owners, design writers, and other industry professionals. If you’re interested in submitting your work or collaborating, please reach out to our Editor-in-Chief at editor@designdash.com.