Organic traffic is vital for your website’s success. Users who visit your website from a search engine’s organic result have specific intentions.
They know what they’re looking for precisely. Thus, users are more likely to convert if your website provides that specific information.
But to increase your website’s organic traffic, you need to look into web accessibility to boost your SEO. So what is web accessibility, and how does it impact organic traffic? Let us learn more.
What Is Web Accessibility?
Web accessibility means that your website is designed so that customers can get the maximum value out of their digital experience regardless of the variation in abilities.
For example, users with cognitive, auditory, neurological, visual, physical, and speech disabilities should be able to access your website and effectively use it.
In addition, such an all-encompassing website should also be accessible to people with temporary impairments, such as the following.
- Acute impairment (For example, people recovering from surgery)
- Environmental impairment (For example, users who cannot play loud audio)
- Situational impairment (For example, users with a poor internet connection)
According to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, users should perceive, navigate, understand, and interact with your website regardless of differences in ability.
How Web Accessibility Positively Impacts Organic Traffic
Did you know that about 15% of people in the world are living with a disability? That makes about one billion people! When thousands of such people visit your website, you have to make it more accessible to help improve their user experience.
When your brand welcomes users and improves navigation for them, it positively impacts the organic traffic. Here is how web accessibility can positively impact organic traffic.
Accessible Web Design Enhances User Experience
A highly accessible website design enhances user experience. Unfortunately, when web designers make a website, they often question their ability to navigate the website without struggling.
Accessible websites should have a similar aim. For example, they should place their logo at the top of the page. Then, link it with their homepage and ensure quick access.
Such user-friendly design helps make websites more accessible. For example, the straightforward text makes navigation easier for people with cognitive impairment.
While most of these web accessibility points are quite obvious, designers need to keep them in mind for increasing traffic. These may not be your out-of-the-box ideas, but they help a broader audience connect to your website.
According to Google, websites with a better user experience rank higher in search engines than websites with poor UX. Therefore, web accessibility is equally important if you wish to cultivate SEO benefits.
Google’s idea of a better user experience includes a simple UX, mobile compatibility, faster site load time, quality content, and internal linking. Sticking to these best practices can benefit you in search engine algorithms and significantly improve your organic traffic.
Title Tags Can Help Searchers & Screen Readers
Title tags are a core part of web development. They are the most straightforward way of giving every page a title on your website.
But these tags are not visible on your web page. Instead, they are at the top of the browser and appear in google searches.
People who use screen readers can highly benefit from title tags as it helps them quickly comprehend multiple pages. A screen reader usually reads the page title first. Therefore it’s critical to add accurate title tags that comprehend the content on every page.
For example, if your web content is about an apple tart recipe, the title tag should be “Best Apple Tart Recipe” instead of “Professionally Baking The Best Tarts.”
Good Header Structure for Establishing Content Hierarchy
Header tags are as important as title tags in the structure of a web page. For example, do you remember outlining essay writing? Header tags work similarly.
There are about six levels of header tags. H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6, respectively. For a web page to become more accessible, it should follow a simplistic header structure with a logical sequence.
Furthermore, it should not skip sections. For example, H4 should not be placed under H2. Lastly, it should accurately represent the content written under the heading.
Users with limited reading comprehension and cognitive impairments can access your website to read the most useful headers. Most users also rely on screen readers. Therefore, they need a well-thought-out header structure for a better user experience.
Alt Text to Provide Context & Keywords
Alt text is vital for providing alternative text to all the visual elements on a web page. It applies to the standard pictures and files such as png, gif, jpg, and jpeg. However, alt text differs from a caption.
A caption is visible to all the viewers of the webpage, while alt text describes the pictures on the back end. It isn’t visible to a viewer on the website.
But without alt texts, captions, and transcripts, users cannot find your content on search engines. Sometimes, non-text content on the page contains vital information. Therefore, users must access it.
Alt text is the primary method of boosting this type of accessibility. However, according to a section on WCAG’s guidelines: “non-text content that is presented to the user has a text alternative that serves the equivalent purpose.”
A screen reader reads the alt text loudly to provide a user with the image context. This significantly helps users with visual impairment. Just like your page titles, your alt text should be highly accurate.
When you write image alt text, you must think of a way to describe the pictures on your website.
For example, if your website has a picture of a camping tent, you can use the following alt text: “dome-shaped blue camping tent on grass” instead of “double layer camping tents, best-camping tents, camping tents for trips.”
Video Transcriptions
Video transcriptions are descriptions of a video file in the form of text. Transcriptions have various approaches. For example, a video of interviews or people talking needs a transcription with exact dialogues delivered in the video.
Videos with a description or explanation need a transcription of the descriptive process. The most challenging video transcriptions are visually striking videos.
The text should describe the visuals in such videos to accurately explain the video content. Such transcriptions require excellent descriptive writing skills.
You should place the video transcriptions right below the video on your website. This tactic increases organic traffic as a broader target audience can access your website.
People with blindness, deafness and other impairments can easily access and understand the content on your site. Such web accessibility has a positive impact on your website’s traffic.
Anchor Text for Improving Page Relevance
Anchor text is another critical factor that increases organic traffic by boosting web accessibility. It is the text you can click on a website.
Anchor text is usually blue, underlined, and highlighted text. For example, in Html, anchor text is written as the following.
<a href=”https://www.catfood.com”> food for your cat <a>
In this example, “food for your cat <a>” is the anchor text. Using optimized anchor text is to present your users with relevance and accuracy. Relevant anchor text gives users accurate expectations of related text on the page.
When users navigate your website with the keyboard or through a screen reader technology, they choose to browse the website by jumping from one link to the next.
The content before or after the anchor text does not concern such users. Therefore, high-quality anchor text can ensure better web accessibility, boosting organic traffic on your web pages.
Why Is Accessibility Vital for Organic Traffic and SEO?
Similar features enhance web accessibility and SEO performance. When you make your website more accessible to a broader audience, you also boost the chances of your website showing up in search engine results.
Accessibility is vital for boosting organic traffic and SEO as it ensures that users of all abilities and backgrounds comprehend, navigate, access, and interact with your website. When a broader audience visits your site, it ranks better in search engines.
How to Make Your Website More Accessible?
You can make a few changes to make your website accessibility better. Here are some of the following.
- Add alt text to relevant media
- Add unique and accurate page titles
- Use descriptive headers
- Properly use headers from H1-H6
- Streamline content by using listings and bullet points
- Place the most important content at the top of the page
Besides this, you can pay close attention to certain elements to improve findability and accessibility. These include the use of an accessibility app or an accessibility plugin.
An accessibility app increases web accessibility for individuals with disabilities. For example, an accessibility plugin contains automated tools that make your website more inclusive to help a broader range of audiences.
The automated tools in an accessibility app also contain a screen reader AI which analyzes web codes to improve screen reader accessibility.
Final Words
Web accessibility and SEO rankings boost your organic traffic because they optimize your website. If you wish to have the mutual benefit of accessibility and SEO, you must aim to improve the website user experience.
Look to serve people of different abilities and backgrounds. Adaptable websites serve users of different needs and preferences and help you unlock a broader range of audiences, boosting your organic traffic.
With the few tips and tricks mentioned in this article, you can create a better user experience for people of different abilities and give yourself an SEO boost.