AI alt text generator

We are excited to introduce our Bulk Alt Text Generator Tool, a user-friendly and efficient solution to help web developers and content creators automatically bulk generate descriptive alt text for their images. Powered by the Replicate API, our tool simplifies the process of adding alt text to multiple images at once, enhancing your website’s accessibility and improving how you rank in image search. The tool is free, but the Replicate API does cost, albeit a very low amount. From testing, 100 images cost around $0.02.

In this article, we’ll discuss the importance of alt text, the benefits of using our tool, its main features, and how to get started with an API key from Replicate.

Key benefits

Improve website accessibility

Alt text, short for alternative text, is a crucial component of web accessibility. It provides a textual description of images for users who are visually impaired or rely on screen readers to access online content. Adding alt text to your images creates a more inclusive browsing experience and demonstrates your commitment to making the web accessible for everyone.

Improve SEO

Search engines, like Google, use alt text to better understand and index the content of your images. By providing descriptive and relevant alt text, you help search engines rank your website more accurately, which can lead to higher search engine rankings and increased organic traffic. Effective alt text benefits users with visual impairments and helps improve your website’s overall SEO performance.

Save time and effort

Generating alt text manually for a large number of images can be time-consuming and labor-intensive. Our Bulk Alt Text Generator Tool automates this process, allowing you to efficiently generate accurate and descriptive alt text for multiple images with just a few clicks. This frees up valuable time for content creators and web developers to focus on other aspects of their work.

Main features

Powered by Replicate API

Our tool utilizes the powerful Replicate API to generate alt text for your images. To get started, you’ll need to sign up for an account on the Replicate website and obtain an API key. The API is very low cost.

Batch image processing

The Bulk Alt Text Generator Tool is designed to handle multiple images at once, significantly speeding up the process of generating alt text.

User-friendly interface

We’ve designed the Bulk Alt Text Generator Tool with usability in mind. The intuitive interface allows you to generate alt text with just a few clicks, making it easy for users of all skill levels to benefit from this powerful tool.

CSV Download

The tool generates a CSV file containing the file names and their corresponding alt text, making it easy for you to save and utilize the generated alt text for your images.

How to get an API Key from Replicate

1. Visit the Replicate website.
2. Register for an account.
3. Choose the API plan that best suits your needs.
4. Receive your API key via email or find it in your user dashboard.

With your API key in hand, you can easily add your key to the API key input above and generate descriptive alt text for your images.

Using our tool

1. Enter your Replicate API key in the designated input field.
2. Select the images you want to generate alt text for by clicking the “Choose Files” button.
3. Click the “Generate” button to start the process.
4. Once the alt text generation is complete, download the CSV file containing the file names and their respective alt text by clicking the “Download CSV” link.

Can I import these alt tags into WordPress?

Yes! Here is an example of how you could do that.

Downloading Images from WordPress via FTP

Before we generate alt texts for your images, let’s first learn how to download images from your WordPress website via FTP.

1. Install and set up an FTP client such as FileZilla or Cyberduck.
2. Connect to your website’s server using your FTP credentials, which can be obtained from your hosting provider.
3. Once connected, navigate to the wp-content/uploads directory where WordPress stores media files.
4. Download the desired images or folders by dragging and dropping them to your local computer.

Uploading the CSV and Updating WordPress Attachments

After generating alt text using our Bulk Alt Text Generator Tool, you can update your WordPress attachments with the alt text using the following steps:

1. Upload the CSV file generated by our tool to your server, preferably in a secure and non-public directory.
2. Create a PHP script to update the WordPress attachments with the alt text.
3. In the script, read the CSV file and loop through each row, extracting the file name and alt text.

// Check if the CSV file exists
if (!file_exists('path/to/your/csv-file.csv') || !is_readable('path/to/your/csv-file.csv')) {
    die("Error: Unable to read the CSV file.");
}

// Read the CSV file, make sure you update this with the path to your CSV
$file = fopen('wp-content/misc/csv-file.csv', 'r');
$altTexts = [];

while (($data = fgetcsv($file)) !== false) {
    $fileName = $data[0];
    $altText = $data[1];
    $altTexts[$fileName] = $altText;
}

fclose($file);Code language: PHP (php)

4. Query the WordPress database to get attachment IDs and file names:

// Query all attachments on your site
global $wpdb;
$attachments = $wpdb->get_results("
    SELECT post_id, meta_value
    FROM $wpdb->postmeta
    WHERE meta_key = '_wp_attached_file'
");Code language: PHP (php)

5. Loop through the attachments, and update their alt text if the file name is in the $altTexts array:

// Update the alt text for each attachment 
foreach ($attachments as $attachment) {
    $fileName = basename($attachment->meta_value);

    if (isset($altTexts[$fileName])) {
        $attachment_metadata = wp_get_attachment_metadata($attachment->post_id);
        $attachment_metadata['image_meta']['alt'] = $altTexts[$fileName];
        wp_update_attachment_metadata($attachment->post_id, $attachment_metadata);
    }
}
Code language: PHP (php)

6. Run the PHP script by visiting the URL or running it via the command line. This will update the alt text for your WordPress attachments based on the file names in the CSV. Once you’re done updating, it’s likely a good idea not to leave the PHP file on your server.

By following these steps, you can efficiently update the alt text for your WordPress images using our Bulk Alt Text Generator Tool and a custom PHP script.

How it works: Leveraging Salesforce Blip

Our Bulk Alt Text Generator Tool relies on the powerful capabilities of Salesforce Blip, an advanced AI-powered image recognition system. Blip is designed to analyze images and extract meaningful information, allowing it to generate accurate and relevant alt text descriptions for a wide range of images.

Here’s a brief overview of how the process works:

1. When you upload your images and click “Generate”, the tool converts each image into a Base64-encoded string and sends it to the server.
2. The server then makes a request to the Replicate API, which utilizes Salesforce Blip to analyze the image and generate the alt text.
3. The API returns the generated alt text, which the tool displays alongside each image and stores in a CSV file for easy download and implementation.

By integrating Salesforce Blip through the Replicate API, our Bulk Alt Text Generator Tool can provide accurate and meaningful alt text descriptions for your images, making your website more accessible and improving its SEO performance.

FAQs