Expert offers tips on SEO, accessibility integration

05/09/2008

Marketers may want to consider enhancing website accessibility to both improve the user experience and give a boost to search engine optimisation (SEO) efforts, an expert has said.

Search Engine Journal's Ann Smarty commented that the two areas of web design often overlap, citing examples such as filling in all relevant alt tags, which can help visually impaired users to find out what a picture shows as well as give search engine crawlers a better understanding of the site's content.

Websites containing video and audio content would also do well to provide text transcripts of these files to both widen access for disabled web users and again help search crawlers to find out more about the site, she explained.

Furthermore, it could be a good idea to ensure that all link anchor text is descriptive and contains keywords, rather than using terms such as 'click 'here', as these do not describe to web users where the link actually goes.

Failing to make websites accessible to all could have significant consequences for businesses, as recently evidenced in the case involving US retailer Target, which has agreed to pay a settlement to certain plaintiffs who were unable to access its website through conventional screen reading software.