Overlaps between SEO and Accessibility

Search Crawlers vs. Screen Readers

Search Engine Optimization is done by adding code in your webpage for search engine crawlers to understand the content and elements on the page. Screen readers do something very similar. Even though the two mostly read different parts of your code, some code, like headers in HTML, are read by both.

How a Web Crawler Works

Similarities

Both Search Crawlers and Screen readers:

• Read:
• URL name and structure
• HTML code looking for SEO/Accessibility keywords and their values
• Header tags
• Video transcription (Having a text script of a video)
• Image captions
• Title tags
• Colour and size, and contrast of text
• The order of your content
• Your method of navigation, table of contents, breadcrumbs
• Link anchor text (linking to another part of the same page)
• Alt attribute on an img tag
• Care about “Findability”, how easy it is to find your content when someone is searching through a search engine or is already on your site.

Differences

Crawlers

• Read meta tags

Screen readers

• Read ARIA tags

Because of these differences, you can’t assume that if you’ve optimized one you’ve implemented the other as well. But they are very conceptually similar.

URL and File naming for SEO and Accessibility

Follow these guidelines when creating accessible and optimized URL naming and file naming:

1. Keep them short and meaningful
   
   
   
   • When a screen reader is reading out each URL on a page, what is the most important information for the user to know? They may not wait for the whole URL to be read
2. Use key search words
   
   
   




3. Don’t create many levels within levels of content. Keep content closer to the root DOM element

References:

1. What You Should Know About Accessibility + SEO, Part I: An Intro - Laura Lippay
2. Web Accessibility Can Boost Your SEO