Merriam Webster defines accessibility as the ability to be easily reached, approached, used or obtained and also refers to the ease of being understood and appreciated. This is synonymous with internet access to any given website since this is vitally important for the ever-important overall user experience.
According to some statistics, the majority of people surveyed, almost three quarters, still want the ability of reaching a human being, although most are content with their online experience. While accessibility to a website is absolutely necessary, it also increases important search engine rankings. Sites that have seamless navigation, user friendly design concepts, properly labeled links and images will have web browsers spending more time on their website and engage with brands more effectively.
With this in mind, how can we boost user experience with by utilizing better online accessibility?
Here are the top three ways to increase the reach of our online audience with better SEO access:
#1 – Use Better Image Descriptions
Unlikely internet users, search engines don’t have eyes so they must rely on descriptions to find the most relevant information from web browser inquiries. Take this picturesque shot of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco:
A typical image (img) tag might look something like this, citing the source (src) of the picture, and that obviously tells us little more than that. To assist the site reader with more information, rename the (img) file name and add a more descriptive, alternative (alt) file to the image, for example, “img src = “golden_gate_bridge” alt = san_francisco”” for better SEO results. Furthermore, site readers will hone in on these alt tags and text within the site’s HTML for more responses.
#2 – Improve Link Descriptions
These hyperlinked words, phrases, sentences even images found within web content grant access to users giving them access to additional information and other places found within the website or across to other places across the world wide web. The description used inside this text should not only guide the user, but also inform them of their ultimate destination.
The use of vague terms like “click here” are often better replaced by more descriptive titles. For example, still using the San Francisco, the text “Click for Chinatown” could be expanded to include “Click here to visit restaurants, shops and parks in Chinatown.” More descriptive text is more enticing to search engines which reads this information verbatim.
#3 – A Semantic Markup Approach
This term refers to the practice of clearly identifying content sections on a site utilizing better HTML codes that more effectively locate and describe titles, headers, footers, locators, navigational tools, etc. This will give a website a more logical layout and assist both human users and robotic readers in navigational experiences.
More importantly, this type of efficient navigation will better assist the web surfer travel throughout the site, increasing engagement, giving them a better overall experience, encouraging users to revisit, offering them more interesting and relevant content. This type of interaction plays an important role in SEO and also garners better traffic results.
In conclusion, these tips will not only increase traffic and offer better SEO results, but they will ultimately give users a better overall experience on websites. Getting noticed online is difficult at best, but by utilizing some of these tips and tricks will gain a better overall user satisfaction rate with today’s web savvy browsers.
All Images Courtesy of Shutterstock
