The Secret Benefit Of Accessibility: Part 2 - A Higher Search Engine Ranking
An additional benefit of website accessibility is an improved performance in search engines. The more accessible it is to search engines, the more accurately they can predict what the site’s about, and the higher your site will appear in the rankings.
Not all of the accessibility guidelines will help with your search engine rankings, but there are certainly numerous areas of overlap:
1. ALT descriptions assigned to images
Screen readers, used by many visually impaired web users to surf the web, can’t understand images. As such, to ensure accessibility an alternative description needs to be assigned to every image and the screen reader will read out this alternative, or ALT, description.
Like screen readers, search engines can’t understand images either and won’t take any meaning from them. Many search engines can now index ALT text though, so by assigning ALT text search engines will be able to understand all your images.
2. Text displayed through HTML, not images
Text embedded in images appears pixelated, blurry and often impossible to read for users utilising screen magnifiers. From an accessibility point of view this should therefore be avoided.
Search engines equally can’t read text embedded in images. Well, you can just give the image some ALT text, right? Unfortunately, there’s strong evidence to suggest search engines assign less importance to ALT text than they do to regular text. Why? Spammers. So many webmasters have been stuffing their ALT tags full of keywords and not using them to describe the image. Search engines have cottoned on to this form of spamming (as they eventually do every form of spamming) and have taken appropriate action.
3. Descriptive link text
Visually impaired web users can scan web pages by tabbing from link to link and listening to the content of the link text. As such, the link text in an accessible website must always be descriptive of its destination.
Search engines place a lot of importance on link text too. They assume that link text will be descriptive of its destination and as such examine link text for all links pointing to any page. If all the links pointing to a page about widgets say ‘click here’, search engines can’t gain any information about that page without visiting it. If on the other hand, all the links say, ‘widgets’ then search engines can easily guess what that page is about.
One of the best examples of this in action is for the search term, ‘miserable failure’. So many people have linked to George Bush’s bio using this phrase as the link text, that now when miserable failure is searched for in Google, George Bush’s bio appears top of the search rankings!
4. Website functions with JavaScript disabled
JavaScript is unsupported by about 9% of web users (source: http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/November/javas.php), either because they’ve turned it off (for example to prevent pop-up adverts) or because their browser doesn’t support it. Many forms of JavaScript aren’t accessible to web users utilising screen readers.
Search engines can’t understand JavaScript either and will be unable to index any JavaScript-driven content. Perhaps more importantly, they’ll also be unable to follow JavaScript-driven links. You may really like the look of your dropdown menu but search engines won’t if they can’t access certain pages on your site because there aren’t any regular links pointing at them.
5. Alternatives to Flash-based content provided
Flash, like JavaScript, isn’t accessible to many users, including those using screen readers. Equally, search engines can’t access Flash so be sure to provide equivalents.
6. Transcripts available for audio
Hearing impaired users obviously require written equivalents for audio content to be able to access it. Search engines too can’t access this medium, but transcripts provide them with a large amount of text for them to index.
7. Site map provided
Site maps can be a useful tool for visually impaired users as they provide a straightforward list of links to the main pages on the site, without any of the fluff in between.
Site maps are also great for search engines as search engines can instantly index your entire site when they arrive at the site map it. Next to each link you can also provide a short keyword-rich preview of the page. All links should, of course, be made through regular HTML and not through JavaScript (see 4. above).
8. Meaningful page title
When we arrive at web pages the first thing that appears, and the first thing that visually impaired users hear, is the page title. This latter group of web users don’t have the privilege of being able to quickly scan the page to see if it contains the information they’re after, so it’s essential that the page title effectively describes the page content.
If you know anything about search engine optimisation you’ll know that the page title is the most important attribute on the page. If it adequately describes the content of that page then search engines will be able to more accurately guess what that page is about.
9. Headings and sub-headings used
Visually impaired web users can scan web pages by tabbing from heading to heading, in addition to tabbing from link to link (see 3. above). As such, it’s important for accessibility to make sure that headings are correctly marked up by using h1, h2 etc.
Search engines assume that the text contained in heading tags is more important than the rest of the document text, as headings describe the content immediately below them. Make sure you use the heading tags properly and don’t abuse them, as the more text you have contained in heading tags, for example, the less importance search engines assign to them.
10. CSS used for layout
Screen readers can more effectively work through the HTML code of CSS-based sites as there’s a greater ratio of content to code. Websites using CSS for layout can also be made accessible to in-car browsers, WebTV and PDAs. Don’t underestimate the importance of this - in 2008 alone there’ll be an estimated 58 million PDAs sold worldwide (source: http://www.etforecasts.com/pr/pr0603.htm).
Search engines also prefer CSS-based sites and are likely to score them higher in the search rankings because:
- The code is cleaner and therefore more accessible to search engines
- Important content can be placed at the top of the HTML document
- There is a greater density of content compared to coding
Conclusion
With all this overlap between web accessibility and search engine optimisation there’s no excuses for not implementing basic accessibility on to your website. It’ll give you a higher search engine ranking and therefore more site visitors.
This article was written by Trenton Moss. He’s crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy ( Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk ) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone.
The modern Internet Directories
Internet Directories can list any site, the idea is to provide the users of the net a main place to locate the sites they are interested in, for example a directory could list cars, race cars or special cars.
These web pages might contain price matches with other racing car parts offered in other web store, to show you what a deal you are getting with the price on the present site. Whatever is listed in the Internet site directories for this particular website will deal with all types of car parts.
Internet directories are making life easier for everyone that uses the Internet. It is easier to see what you choices are, what companies have what you need, or offer the service you need. It also tells you by the ranking in the site, which companies have been in business longer, or thought enough about their business to pay the hosting site to place it higher in the preferred Internet site directories ranking.
Internet site directories can also provide business-to-business (B2B) vertical content. This is web site advertising that is presented in worded lines, and placed on an Internet web page in a vertical, reading position. The content is professionally written to tell the website visitor about the company, the products they sell, and what their policies are. It will also list contact information for their customer service department.
Ajax Fundementals: A Revolutionary New Way to Look at the Web
The Ajax framework has introduced a novel way to look at the basics of a web application and has been touted by the likes of Google, Yahoo, and Amazon.com, but is it really worth investing the time to learn more about it? By the fact that you are reading this article, that question most likely has been answered, at least in part, beforehand. Hopefully, this article will help to confirm that answer, as Ajax really is that “next great thing” to hit the web development industry. In it, I will share the basic fundamentals of Ajax and the ideas we developed while undertaking a massive research project in Ajax late last year.
Ajax Fundamentals
Probably the most revolutionary aspect of any Ajax web application is its treatment of website pages, or more appropriately a lack thereof. You see, the end goal in any Ajax application is to mimic the functionality, speed, and efficiency of a desktop application on the web. This involves immediate response when a user clicks on a button, link, submits text, and interacts in other ways with the site. Customarily, we are all used to having the page reload essentially whenever the user interacts with a site. Ajax wishes to change this for good. Using JavaScript, Ajax applications dynamically change the website on the Client (which is key for speed and not reloading the page) in response to user input, without going back to the server.
JavaScript and Ajax
Given that Ajax applications attempt to reduce calls to the server to just data requests, much more of any Ajax system resides on the client, with JavaScript as the main language used to manipulate the web page, respond to user input, and communicate with the server. Despite the treatment of JavaScript as a trivial if not annoying aspect of web development and design in the past, Ajax has completely revitalized this language as a novel if not revolutionary way to develop applications for the web. Several key aspects of the JavaScript language provide the core functionality in any Ajax application: JavaScript’s manipulation of the web page DOM (Document Object Model, think XML), JavaScript’s XMLHttpRequest (how JS communicates with the server), and the existence of JavaScript on nearly every modern browser.
In order to truly understand how JavaScript is capable of manipulating the web page on-the-fly in response to user input, one must look at the layout of any web page as an XML document. The parent node is referred to as ‘document’, and is referred to by JavaScript as such, and every other part of the HTML document is a child node of the document node. To get a better idea of what I am talking about, take a look at Firefox’s DOM inspector (under the ‘tools’ menu). Using JavaScript’s ability to parse XML, one can edit, add, or delete elements from the web page on-the-fly. This becomes a crucial aspect of the Ajax application with respect to its goal of reducing page reloads, as the page can essentially redraw itself when necessary without receiving HTML from the server.
Within an Ajax application, communication with the server is typically limited to the exchange of data, usually in XML (or more recently JSON, JavaScript Object Notation). Using JavaScript’s remote scripting capabilities with the XMLHttpRequest, the application can communicate with the server asynchronously (the A in Ajax), allowing other parts of the application to function as normal while the application sends and receives data. This aspect of JavaScript is key to providing desktop-like functionality on the web, as user interaction with other parts of the site is not interrupted by the application’s communication with the server. Another important aspect of the XMLHttpRequest is that it can implement server-side scripts written in any server-side language, like PHP, ColdFusion, or VB.NET. This allows JavaScript to gain the functionality of server-side code right on the client.
Finally, probably the most important factor in JavaScript’s centrality to Ajax is the portability of a JavaScript program to nearly every modern browser, occasionally with some cross-browser fixes necessary to achieve full portability. With proposed changes to Internet Explorer in IE7, these cross-browser fixes will likely become less and less necessary.
Tools you’ll want (and need) to develop Ajax applications
Probably the most important tool that you’ll want to develop Ajax application is your favorite web developing software, whether it be something as complex as Macromedia Dreamweaver or as simple as Notepad. In order to test your JavaScript in your application, you’ll probably want something like Firefox’s JavaScript Console (in the ‘tools’ menu) to view any errors that the browser gives you. Additionally, any tool that shows you the webpage DOM is key in getting a visual reference of how JavaScript manipulates the page. Finally, a multitude of JavaScript libraries, specifically geared towards Ajax, are beginning to pop up all over the web. These libraries make it much easier to do both page manipulation and remote scripting. Simply do a search for ‘Ajax libraries’ or ‘JavaScript libraries’ to check out a few.
Some ideas for developing an Ajax application
Although Ajax’s presence on the web is still limited, one can already see how it is improving web functionality on several high-profile sites. Google has been the company that has seemingly invested the most time and money into this new technology. With Google Maps, Gmail, Google Suggest, and other Google products, Ajax is being utilized in full force by providing the user with instantaneous response from the application without annoying page reloads. Additionally, Yahoo and Amazon.com have begun to develop web portals using Ajax, which leads us to our first idea for an Ajax application: the web site portal. With JavaScript’s capacity to create windows, contextual menus, and movable elements, an Ajax application can mimic a desktop UI rather easily. As such, the Ajax web portal provides the user with a desktop-like interface to assemble information from a variety of sources (much like the same goal of the classic web portal).
Ajax can also be used to ease the portability of any desktop application to the web, such as online banking software, word processors, graphics programs, RSS aggregators, or industrial order processing software. With the ability to change the web page on the fly and communicate with the server asynchronously, the bounds are limitless when developing web applications using Ajax.
Christopher Alexander is a lead developer at CE InterWeb Solutions and a Managing Partner at Consolidated Energies.
He has been developing advanced web applications using a variety of frameworks since 2000.