Web accessibility and SEO are mutually beneficial and interrelate in many areas. Both are machine-readable. Both determine the relevance of content by analyzing readability, content and site structure, and functionality. By working on web accessibility, your SEO will also improve.
How can you improve your web accessibility and SEO?
How can you improve your web accessibility and SEO?
Alt Text
Providing alternative (alt) text for images and graphics on your website makes it easier for visually impaired users and search engines to understand. If you were to remove the images from your website and just provide alt text, would you understand the context?
Providing alt text for images also opens you up to a source of organic traffic: Google images. Some users will go to a website purely based on choosing a hyperlinked image in the image SERP (search engine results page).
Providing alt text for images also opens you up to a source of organic traffic: Google images. Some users will go to a website purely based on choosing a hyperlinked image in the image SERP (search engine results page).
Readability
Providing more readable content benefits all users. Google boosts concise and easy to understand content. You can easily improve your readability by using readability tools, Web Governance tools, and taking the following readability tips into consideration.
Based on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level readability test, you can make your content more readable by:
Want to know your readability level? Use our free SEO Text Editor.
Based on the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level readability test, you can make your content more readable by:
Want to know your readability level? Use our free SEO Text Editor.
- Reducing your sentence length. Think about using full stops, instead of commas, to break up ideas.
- Catering your language to your audience. Use simple and shorter words where possible. For example, for more general audiences, saying “think about” is more readable than “contemplate”.
- Using subheadings, numbered lists, and bullet points to break up large chunks of content.
- Sharing definitions of any slang or professional terms.
Want to know your readability level? Use our free SEO Text Editor.
Video Transcripts
By sharing video transcripts, you allow users with hearing impairments, users in public places without headphones, and search engines to understand what the content of the video is about. Transcripts help videos get indexed which can increase your search traffic. On YouTube, Google uses the video description to rank videos and show featured snippets in SERP.
Title Tags
According to Moz.com, “Title tags are the second most important on-page factor for SEO, after content”. Page title tags are displayed as the ‘headline’ on SERP. Having a useful title tag helps all users find your content and particularly benefits those with a disability.
Check that the page title:
Check that the page title:
- Is different to other titles on your website
- Adequately summarises the content on the page
- Is ‘front-loaded’ with the important information so it is displayed first. Eg. ‘Contact Us - Have Questions?’ not ‘Monsido Contact Us’
Header Structure
Properly structured heading tags help organize the structure of content to make it more navigable and understandable for users with a disability, users who use assistive technologies, those who need to use a keyboard to navigate sites, and search engines. Consider using your target keyword in subheadings and using a table of contents (which can appear as ‘jump to’ links in SERP) to increase visibility and click-through rates.
Site Structure
Site structure is a key part of SEO and web accessibility strategy. Being able to navigate through content easily and find the correct information quickly benefits everyone. Evaluating outdated content, organizing categories, creating clear navigation, using breadcrumb navigation, and providing a sitemap can help raise your web accessibility and improve SEO.
Are you wondering how to handle web accessibility? Get your free Accessibility Handbook.
