_{Day 106/100}

Hey—It's Tim. 

I was on the SkyTrain a few weeks back when a teenager pulled out his phone and started live-narrating a TikTok to his gran over speakerphone:

Half the carriage was smirking; Gran was cackling.
And it hit me: the kid wasn’t just being loud - he was writing world-class alt text in real time.

I know, I know. I’m seriously marketing-pilled.
But I’m not wrong.

No “image001.jpg.”
No jargon.
Just a perfect, vivid picture for someone who couldn’t see the screen.

That’s today’s lesson in a nutshell.

Alt text: because Google can’t see memes (yet)

1. MY GOLDEN RULE OF WRITING ALT TEXT - Pretend you’re on the phone.
   If you’d naturally say, “It’s a Shiba Inu wearing VR goggles, floating through space,” that’s your alt text.
   No keyword-stuffed nonsense. No “photo of.” Just describe the thing.
   

2. Lead with what matters.
   Screen readers announce alt text immediately. Put the core subject first, context second.
   → “VR-wearing Shiba Inu, in space-— hero graphic for our Web3 post.”
   

3. Skip the filler.
   Everyone knows it’s an image. Ditch words like picture, graphic, image of.
   

4. Keep it tweet-length.
   140 characters is tidy. Anything longer risks monologue territory.
   

5. Include intent, not vibes.
   Bad: “Our awesome, amazing, super-epic SaaS dashboard.”
   Good: “Screenshot of Penfriend’s dashboard highlighting tone-match score.”

(Yes, I just sold our feature inside the alt text. Pure SEO-nerd dopamine.)

Why it actually matters

• Accessibility – 2.2 billion people live with visual impairment. Good alt text equals wider audience and brand karma.
  

• Image search traffic – 20-25 % of all Google queries end in Images. Descriptive alt = ranking there, too.
  

• Edge-case indexing – When your JavaScript decides to nap, alt text still whispers context to crawlers.

I once outranked a Fortune 500 for their own product photo because they named it IMG_4823.jpg and I wrote eight honest words.

Small win, big grin.

Short one today.
Comp results tomorrow.

✌️ Tim "Alt Text Haiku Writer" Hanson
CMO @Penfriend.ai

Same brain, different platforms: X, Threads, LinkedIn.

P.S. Are you the shark, dog, roomba, cat or sushi from that picture?

Penfriend.ai
Made by content marketers. Used by better ones.