An accessible website is just that…accessible to everyone. The code that lies behind it is very clean if you seperate style from structure. So, when a search engine spider such as Splut or Googlebot visits your website, it can tell just what your website is about much easier than one full of junk code.
So, what are the benefits of creating a website that is accessible?
Cleaner Code
Having cleaner code means that the search engine can quickly determine what your website is about. If you use XHTML elements semantically then the search engine will tell from the early inclusion of the title, h1 and h2 tag exactly what your website is about.
In the early stages spiders will not index deeply into your site and may only index the first one hundred lines of code. If this code is full of junk then you gain no benefit whatsoever. However, if these first hundred lines contain h1, h2 and good clean content then you have a much better chance of ranking well as the spider gets more information from your website.
ALT Descriptions and Images
Not all people can view images. Not all people want to. Some people browse the internet with images turned off so they can surf faster. Good practice always means you should put some alternative text to replace the image in these cases.
Googlebot? will index this alt text, especially if it is linked, and may carry as much weight as a pure text link. Very important! Some search engines will not index alt text due to spam in the past but if you play straight and do not overload the alt text with rubbish you will be fine. It’s also good practice.
Better Menus
Some users who may have visual impairment may browse your website tabbing from link to link. As a screen reader used by some visually impaired users cannot understand images, you should use text links which are descriptive of the destination of the text link.
Search engines are placing more and more importance on text links and especially the actual text of that link. Do a search for anchor text and you will see what I mean. The web is built on a mass of links and the search engine algorithms are now putting major efforts and emphasis on text links.
If you create your menus properly, using ul and li tags with great descriptive text in so the search engine spiders can read and follow these links, not only will your SERPS increase, but your Page Rank will be spread throughout your site better also.
Site Maps
Sitemaps are very handy for visually impaired users as they allow the user to visit all pages from a website from one simple page. That is, if the designer used his text and alt tags properly.
Site maps are also wonderful for search engines as they can index the whole of your website in one visit. I recently did this for an e-commerce site I designed for somebody. Not only that, but the internal text links, with those alt tags, provide great material to get your SERPS rocking.
The Page Title
One of the most important things that a website provides for a visually impaired user is the page title. It tells them exactly what the page is about. Therefore, titles such as Homepage, About Us etc are useless to a visually impaired user.
Therefore, you should use descriptive title tags. Anybody who knows anything about SEO also knows that the title tag is one of the most important aspects of your SERPS.
The secret here is to keep your title short and sweet. About five words but not reams and reams which I see often.
Semantic Mark Up
Visually impaired users can also navigate from header to header rather like the page to page as outlined above. Visual users tend to scan a web page rather than read it, looking for useful, relevent bits of information. This method allows a non visual user the same option.
Therefore, A good idea is to mark up your code in a semantic fashion. Putting the most important information on that web page in h1 tags and then lessor important information in h2 tags and so on and so forth.
Search engines also pay a lot of attention to these tags and will index these elements as being important. Consider it highlighting certain parts of your webpage for the search engine spider. If you make the job easier for the spider, it will make life easier for you.
Conclusion
So, even if you have never considered accessibility, just following some of the practices may mean your web sire ranks higher in the search engines. Although on-site is only a small part of a successful seo campaign, it can help you achieve much more traffic and opens your website up to users that you would otherwise have lost before. Want to rank better?