The key goal of SEO is to ensure that the target audience of a company is been able to effortlessly discover their website. But none of it would be of any use if a certain part of the populace cannot access the website. The factors of discoverability and web accessibility go hand in hand. One can only reap the optimal benefits of SEO if their website is easily accessible by the target audience, including people with disabilities. Companies like AccessiBe offer a number of solutions that help companies in making their websites accessible. They had launched two innovative products last year to increase internet accessibility for people with disabilities, which are known as accessFlow and accessCampus.
Web accessibility is an important initiative by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). It aims at making websites usable and accessible for everyone. It basically means that any user should be able to easily perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with a website. Web accessibility includes all individuals who might be suffering from some kind of a disability that impacts their ability to access the web. This can include cognitive, speech, physical, visual, auditory and neurological disabilities. There are many areas where SEO and web accessibility intersect. Hence, by improving the accessibility of a website, one can also augment its SEO.
Most of the practices undertaken for creating accessible website designs are also the ones that enhance its user experience, such as:
- Legible text not makes websites look appealing for the visitors and helps ensuring that people with visual impairments do not face much issue in accessing in.
- Straightforward navigation contributes to improved visitor experience and is also helpful for individuals with cognitive impairments or users who are navigating the website with just a keyboard.
- Fast load times aids individuals with disabilities, as well as users having a poor Internet connection.
- Navigating a website can be frustrating for both regular and disabled individuals in case its links are missing or broken.
Each of these little factors pays a major role in SEO. They help in creating an improved user experience, which is a vital ranking factor. As per Google guidelines, websites with better user experience ideally shall have a higher priority in search engine pages (SERPs). Another important aspect of designing an accessible website is to use page titles on each webpage that help users with impairment to understand what it is all about. Usage of accurate page titles additionally reflects the fact that the content of the webpage is essential. It is particularly important for visually impaired individuals as the page title is the first element that a screen reader will read. It shall subsequently set expectations for these users on what information they are going to consume on the page. The page title is also crucial for SEO as Google makes it clear that the page content should match the user intent. Resources offered by companies like AccessiBe can significantly help in making websites accessible.
