Lighthouse gave me a shitty score during the weekend.

... I was finishing up the marketing site for Reachly, and everything looked pixel-perfect. Then, I ran the initial Lighthouse test.

My heart sank: Accessibility and SEO were all yellow (not bad but i love me a Green). 😁

Google flagged a critical error: “Image elements do not have [alt] attributes.” (See image)

🚨The culprit? The video testimonials.

I was using Framer’s native YouTube component.

Lighthouse was demanding image alt text for a video thumbnail (weird).

Framer doesn't provide an option to add alt text to that native component.

So i spent a stressful Sunday down a research rabbit hole. Nothing worked. I closed my laptop and took the weekend off.

On Monday, with a clear head, I fixed it - took maybe 20 minutes.

🚨So how did i do it?:

"I ditched the native YouTube component & instead copied the raw HTML embed code for each video, inserted an Embed block and pasted the HTML embed code.

The error vanished. Lighthouse shot straight up into a clean, green circles all 90s

(Fun fact: Webflow users run into this exact same video thumbnail issue, though the workaround is slightly different).

🚨The takeaway: Having design and building skills is great but learn the technical side too.

I could have easily ignored this error and handed off the site, but ignoring the technical side under the hood is a mistake. Hidden technical debt is a silent killer for your SEO and kills your chances of getting free customers from Google.

🚨PS: I'm thinking of writing a longer & more detailed, step-by-step guide on how I solved this probelm.

Would this be useful to you? Let me know in the comments.