Digital accessibility is one of the most important things you can do for your business. It's not just about ensuring your website looks good; it's about ensuring everyone who visits your site can see what it looks like.
It is essential if you're a small business owner because Google will penalize you if they think your site isn't very friendly to people with disabilities. It can hurt the organic traffic to your site and how well it ranks on search engines like Google.
In this article, we'll talk about why digital accessibility matters so much and how to ensure that all aspects of your website are accessible to everyone, all while keeping costs down.
The importance of accessibility in SEO is often overlooked, but it's essential to understand how it can benefit your online presence. When you make your website more accessible, you're helping people with disabilities access the information they need and helping search engines like Google better understand what your site is about.
When you think about accessibility as a concept, you may be thinking about ways to ensure that your website is accessible to visually impaired people or those who have difficulty reading text. But there are more than just those groups that need help with their web-browsing experience. When we talk about designing for accessibility on a website, we mean making sure that any content on your page is readable using multiple types of devices and technologies (screen readers).
If you've ever seen a page of search results and wondered why one business's website is at the top when it looks like its competitors are doing better work, there could be a couple of reasons for this phenomenon. One reason may be that they've optimized their websites for digital accessibility, which helps them rank better on search engines.
Accessibility is one way that Google and other search engines can understand what your site is about and how well structured it is for users to find what they're looking for. It makes sense if we think about how people use the internet. Searching through multiple pages on a website often involves backtracking as users try to determine where they are within that site structure by clicking through links or menus until they get where they need to go (or give up).
Suppose you have hard-to-read text or images that require special software to view correctly. In that case, there's no way Google can accurately understand what those elements mean or whether someone should care enough not only to download the necessary software but then use it so they can navigate your website correctly. Google wants its users to come back again and again because when people do come back time after time, then that means more opportunities for advertisers who pay Google money whenever someone clicks ads on their site after searching through results based on keywords typed into google itself (which means more money).
Creating a mobile-friendly website is another way to ensure your site ranks well on search engines. The reason is simple; Google wants users to have the best experience possible when they search for something, which includes finding the most relevant content on their mobile device. As a small business owner, you should look into hiring SEO consultants who can help you develop a website that can load on any device with ease. And in the mobile-first era, this could be a make-or-break decision for your business.
The next step is to use the right keywords in your content. Keywords are words or phrases that people search for on search engines. If you are a small business owner, you want to ensure that your website includes these keywords to rank better on search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo!
Keywords are an essential part of your web content because they help determine which pages show up first when a person searches for something related to you in their local area. The more relevant keywords you have, such as "accountant" or "cheap hotels," the higher your page will appear on results pages, and the more likely someone will click on it.
Keywords must be relevant to your business; otherwise, they won't help improve its ranking on search engines. For example, if you are in the accounting business, you would want to include keywords like "accountants near me" and not "lawyers near me."
You might think that Google will only see your site as quick-loading if it's hosted on a local server, but you'd be wrong. Some tools can show you how quickly your site loads in real-time and even let you test how fast other sites load.
These tools are easy to use and super helpful in improving page load times. Just copy the URL of any webpage into one of these programs, hit enter, and watch as they tell you how long it takes for them to load on a computer (including yours).
In most cases, improving page speed won't require more than upgrading your hosting package or changing some basic HTML code.
As a business owner, you likely understand the importance of getting excellent links to your website. Backlinks are still an essential factor when it comes to SEO. It is equally vital for you to know that not all backlinks are created equal.
Few things can boost your rankings better than high-quality links that pass link juice and increase your trustworthiness with search engines. In other words, if you can get links from authoritative sites and domains, then, by all means, do so.
If possible, try getting many of them through guest posting on high-authority websites or writing articles for them. Remember to use the correct anchor text. If those options aren't possible at this point. Maybe they're too expensive or just not available—then look into building relationships with influencers in your industry.
They'll be happy to help if they have something valuable in return. For example, shares/retweets on social media or mentions on their blogs/podcasts/etc., so long as it helps promote their businesses as well.
As you can see, digital accessibility is a big deal. It's not just a moral imperative; it's also good for business. By making your website accessible to everyone, you're increasing the chances that your target audience will find you. That means more sales and more opportunities to grow your business!
