When it comes to improving your website’s standing in the Google search results, focusing on improving the accessibility of the website can be an important part of this. Indeed, improving website accessibility is a goal that all website owners should strive for. It can not only improve your website’s functionality and usefulness for disabled viewers but will also improve your website’s rankings in the Google search results as well! But why is this the case? How can website optimization for disabled users help boost your website through the rankings?
Website Optimization for Google Ranking
Generally speaking, most website developers do not design their websites with website accessibility in mind. This means that sites for persons with disabilities can be few and far between. As a result, there is plenty of scope for people to try to optimize their website to make it suitable for disabled users, without compromising on site speed optimization.
Why Is Website Accessibility Optimization Important?
In the modern day, it is said that approximately one in four American adults are living with some form of disability. This means that website accessibility is more important than ever—and developers who don’t consider this need to change their approach, as they could be doing themselves a major disservice!
When Google ranks websites, it is looking for those which are likely to be the most relevant to its users. With so many people living with a disability, it is therefore unsurprising that website accessibility is something that Google considers important.
Alt Attributes
One way of making your website accessible for persons with disabilities is to make sure that all infographic content have alt attributes attached to them. People with disabilities largely rely on assistive technology to be able to explain the content of the website to the viewer. In the case of images, though, this is not possible. Instead, the technology will look to the Alt attributes for information regarding the images. This will help disabled users understand the content that is being demonstrated on the website. As part of this, it is important to make sure the alt attributes are relevant and descriptive; instead of being generic, they should accurately describe the scene in the picture.
Digital Landmarks
Website users who are reliant upon screen readers don’t want to sit through long amounts of text to get to the information that they require. As part of this, digital landmarks are important. These digital landmarks allow the screen reader to jump between sections of text to find the relevant information for the viewer. Clearly, this makes the website far higher quality and easier for persons with disabilities to use, and so will also help the website rank more highly on Google.
Regular Maintenance is Key!
There are many different ways you can make your website more accessible. Website accessibility is important for ranking on the Google search results, but as with everything, these things need to be continually managed and monitored. Regular maintenance of the accessibility strategies is, thus, imperative if the website optimization is to be a success for improving the website’s Google search results ranking and position.
As you can see website accessibility is for everyone. If you are interested in learning more, or applying it to your website, please get in touch. I am always available for consultation.