In a new series of blog articles, we take a look at Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) for beginners to keep you up to date with the ever-changing digital world. In this blog we delve into the importance of website accessibility, and its importance for SEO.

Firstly, a company’s website is usually the first point of contact for a business’s audience across the globe so it’s common sense to understand that you need to make your website accessible.

Website users, customers or clients usually want short and snappy information at their fingertips which allows them to find out everything they need to know. That’s why we’ve come up with some top tips on ways which you can make your website more accessible and enhance its visibility.

Accessibility

This is one of the most important things to consider when building a website not only that but it must apply to The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) which is part of a series of website accessibility guidelines published by the Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI) of the World Wide Web Consortium, the main international standards organisation for the internet.

This may sound complicated but it’s definitely a good thing to get your head around. Website accessibility means that you won’t seclude any of your audience demographics because this will allow anyone to use your website, including those living with disabilities. This will give everyone the opportunity to have complete access to your information and service and will in turn enable them to understand, navigate and simply interact with your website.

Before launching your website, ask yourself, can it be used by everyone?

Responsiveness

This function / process allows you to ensure your website can respond to every type of device. For example, you may need to ensure your website works on a range of platforms including smart phones, laptops, tablets and computers. If it doesn’t you could be losing important business.

Layout and navigation

This point relates to how easily users can function your website, ensuring that each of the actions your audience can carry out gives them an answer or gets them quickly to the information they need to see.

Take a look at other websites to see how they can be used. Write some notes for improvement and then criticise your own website in the same way. You never know, you might stumble upon a better way of doing things.

Know your audience

Finally, knowing your audience is something your and your business should constantly be on top of on a daily basis.

Recent technology and analysis which shares with you information about your audiences is now easier than ever to obtain, it’s usually also free to view and at your fingertips on every device possible.

Monitor which pages your audiences are viewing most, find out what they’re most likely to buy, which demographic they are from and so on…

Be prepared and make assumptions – this will allow you to adapt your website to make it much smoother with your audiences in mind.

If you want to know more about how SEO and Google Search Console can help you and your business, get in touch here. We are also currently offering free SEO Health Checks. Click the link to get yours.