Importance of Website Accessibility and its effect on SEO

Web Accessibility is a term coined to express the things that are done for ensuring the access to the features and content of a website. Web accessibility and Search Engine Optimization are interrelated in many ways. Content which are readable by the users and the SEO optimized content are both readable by Search Engines. Screen Readers which are used for accessing information by people with disabilities are relying on the structure of the content and semantics for the users.

Search Engines crawl content and index them in their database and shows the content depending upon relevancy when asked by users. Web Accessibility guidelines help website designers and developers to implement specific structure and codes for making the content visible to the user. In earlier days SEO dependent more on black hat methods  link link building techniques. But as years passed SEO got aligned with Accessibility and the more accessible sites have become more SEO friendly.

The following are some of the general tips for increasing web accessibility and SEO factors

• Use of Alternative Text for Images to make it visible on Text only Browsers
• Use of Heading tags in a proper hierarchical way and avoiding the use of empty heading tags
• Use of descriptive link titles to avoid confusion if more links are present on the web page
• Use of page Title and meta Descriptions to make it visible on Search Engine Results Page
• Use of javascript to minimum and avoiding wherever not required
• Use of various input features compatible with mobile devices also.
• Use of standards on web design and development
• Use of transcriptions and sub titles for videos for making it easy to read while watching
• Use of proper navigation to help users get content easily
• Use of URL which are easy to read and conveying the categories effectively