While many businesses value accessibility in principle, applying it in specific ways that benefit your customers and your business can seem daunting. Online presence, in particular, is an area where accessibility is often overlooked. A study found that 95% of websites fail to conform to the accessibility standards required by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Some of the downsides of not being fully accessible are obvious, including legal ramifications, negative brand image and failure to engage and support people with disabilities. While accessibility is obviously a good thing in its own right and may be legally required depending on your location, it also affects your website's SEO.

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Accessibility and SEO

Many businesses don't realize that they are wasting their SEO efforts if they don't prioritize accessibility. The level of accessibility your website offers significantly affects conversion rates, rankings and organic traffic. One study found that prioritizing accessibility solutions led to a “Average 12% increase in overall traffic.”

Technically, accessibility is an aspect of user experience, something Google factors heavily into rankings. Since SEO campaigns involve revising your website and improving user experience, they offer one of the best opportunities to implement accessibility strategies and meet multiple brand objectives effectively.

THE minimize accessibility errors on your site while improving SEO, it's important to understand the principles of accessibility and some of the key starting points for a comprehensive, search-friendly website.

4 principles of accessibility

Accessibility principles come from Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). While this act applies to more than just websites, its principles are useful guidelines for developing an SEO campaign that prioritizes accessibility.

• Perceptible: All users should be able to access and understand the content on your website. This requires you to consider users with a range of speaking, listening or cognitive abilities.
• Operable: Your website should be easy for users with disabilities to navigate and engage with.
• Understandable: Both the content and the structure of your website should be easy to understand.
• Strong: A robust website runs quickly and smoothly without glitches in accessibility tools such as alternative text or subtitles. It should also be easy for you to adapt as accessibility guidelines and tools evolve.

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7 ways to start improving your website's accessibility

While the principles of accessibility are quite general, there are some very specific steps you can take to start creating an accessible website.

1. Make sure your website is compatible with assistive technologies: Many people use assistive technology to access websites, especially if they are visually impaired. Modifying HTML elements to ensure your website is compatible with the technologies is essential to meeting accessibility requirements. Many companies rely on SEO experts or accessibility widgets to meet these standards.
2. Implement transcripts and captions for video accessibility: Transcripts and captions allow hearing impaired people to engage with your content. Additionally, search engines will understand and index your content more easily if you've included subtitles.
3. Provide alternative text: If your website relies heavily on images, with no alt text, your content will be inaccessible to many users and harder for search engines to index. Provide clear alt text for visual content to eliminate this error.
4. Rate the readability: One of the most common accessibility mistakes is not ensuring proper color contrast. You can use a color contrast test tool to make sure the contrast on your page isn't too low or too high.
5. Rearrange navigation: Reorganizing the structure and navigation of your website improves the user experience and indexability. Elements such as title tags, page titles, header structure, and breadcrumb navigation should all be optimized to improve click-through rates and accessibility.
6. Find instructions to follow: Before you begin, it's important to know which guidelines apply to you. These guidelines can help you develop specific accessibility goals. Many websites are required to meet WCAG 2 Level AA guidelines as well as other national guidelines such as the ADA. To stay compliant, be sure to stay up-to-date, as these regulations and guidelines are constantly changing.
7. Use accessibility audit tools: It can be difficult to identify and eliminate accessibility errors yourself. Consider using accessibility audit tools or hiring an SEO company that has a thorough understanding of current accessibility practices.

Connected: To further digital access, we must start from within

Accessibility is a worthwhile investment for your business from a number of perspectives. An accessible website will be easier for all your users, as well as search engines, to navigate. This increases user engagement, lowers bloating rates and increase organic traffic. Keep your business compliant with accessibility guidelines and increase your engagement with internet users of all abilities by prioritizing accessibility as part of your SEO efforts.