Accessibility. What does that mean in terms of a website and why do you care? Accessibility means that visually or physically challenged individuals can access the content on your website. Do you know the visually impaired (yes even totally blind) can surf the web? You may not have thought about it, but it’s pretty cool when if you do. But visual challenges are not limited to blindness. As people age it becomes harder to read small text font and text with less contrast. Accessibility is not limited to visual challenges. Some individuals have trouble with mouse control, so the placement and size of buttons and links are important.
Why do I care about this?
From a human standpoint:
Caring that everyone has access to your site is the first consideration.
Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.”
Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web
Those with profound visual or reading impairment use a screen reader, a device used to “see” what is on a site by reading it.
From a practical aspect:
If your clients or customers can’t use your website because it is too hard to see or difficult or impossible to read, you will lose business. My customers whose clients may be physically or visually challenged are very aware of the importance of accessibility and will request special functions. Examples are text size control and contrast adjustment, as well as over-sized buttons and all links as buttons with sufficient space around the buttons to allow for mouse or touch with limited fine motor control.
From a Search Engine standpoint:
Accessible websites are easier for search bots to read and are therefore ranked better. Keep in mind that an SEO bot can only “see” what a screen reader can read.
What Makes a Site Accessible?
There are accessibility standards (Click the link for more information). Some of these standards can get very extensive, but some are baseline.
Seeing images through ALT tags
The ALT tag on images is the accessibility function that affects SEO most. ALT text is huge for site readers and SEO. Think about this: What does a picture look like to a blind person? HMM. Solution: The ALT (alternative) text. This is an attribute in an image tag which uses text to tell the visually impaired what is in the image. I used to tell folks to tell me how they would describe the image to a blind person. Since search engines also “see” the image through the alt text, you also want to try to get your keyword into the alt text if it makes sense. (Remember, the web is for humans first, search engines second).
Font size and Contrast
While font size and contrast may not affect SEO directly, if people have a hard time reading or using your site they will leave it (or bounce). Bounce rates do affect rankings. Many themes lately use bitty fonts and low contrast between the font and the background. From a practical standpoint: Your next really big client or customer may have “old eyes” and need the contrast and font size.
Link Size and Spacing
One accessibility issue that bears consideration is the size of links and buttons. If a link or button is too small, or has other links too near it, or is hard to discern as a link, there may be problems for people with motor control issues. While I am super careful about this on sites where I know the end-user may not be able to easily interact with links, I am becoming much more conscious of this on all sites.