It’s official – we live in the digital era – where literally anyone and everyone can access every possible piece of information via Google, Wikipedia, Yahoo, Bing, or other hubs.
Rather than heading over to libraries, all we need to do is boot up our devices, open our favorite browser, and type in the keywords focused on the topic(s) we are looking forward to fetching information about.
From looking up information to ordering food to watching our favorite movies online, rapid technological advancements have literally changed our lives.
Despite that, the one big problem that has been unaddressed for years is website accessibility.
Over 98% of websites are inaccessible by the disabled community. And that’s not just a community of hundreds or thousands we’re talking about.
More than a billion people live with some sort of disability. And in the near future, the number has unfortunately been predicted to rise in an exponential manner.
As a result, countries all across the globe are on a mission to build a highly accessible digital world by making it mandatory for businesses to adhere to the WCAG standards.
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA), and many others are solely focused on building a world that’s fully accessible by anyone and everyone.
Read more about the Americans with Disability Act HERE.
Despite making it mandatory to adhere to the WCAG 2.0 guidelines, we’ve witnessed very few businesses do something about it. For them, it’s just too much work.
But did you know that website accessibility is one of the core signals Google and other search engines take into consideration while determining search engine rankings?
That’s right.
Not having an easily accessible website may have a disastrous effect on your search engine rankings. Let’s learn how.
How are Website Accessibility & SEO Related?
First thing’s first – Google and other search engines are heavily focused on delivering the most relevant results to their users. But producing the highest quality content and offering relevant information isn’t just enough.
While Google hasn’t revealed website accessibility to be an official ranking factor, it helps businesses focus on delivering a great customer experience. Some other ranking factors Google takes into consideration while determining search engine rankings include:
- User Experience
- Page Speed
- Mobile Friendliness
- Security
- Domain Age
- URL
Just to name a few!
Google prioritizes user experience over most factors – as delivering a perfect user experience should be at any business’ top of the priority list. Website flooded with too much information and poor user experience will never rank at the top.
And that includes delivering a great user experience to everyone accessing a website, even the disabled ones. Website accessibility will help you keep your website interface cleaner and easy to navigate and deliver a great experience. At the same time, focusing on website accessibility allows businesses to cater to the needs of disabled people.
From alt-texts to readability to navigation to video quality to font size, Google crawlers will thoroughly index your website. And while doing so, the one big thing that will be taken into consideration is whether the website is built just for the sake of SEO or instead is focused on delivering a stellar user experience.
At redfox visual, we build websites for real people – not for search engines, unlike what other marketing agencies do. And we would love to do the same for you.
Hire the #1 award-winning website design and development agency in Boise today.
Explore Our Blog Section:
