Story Based Question
You’re managing the SEO for a popular e-commerce website. Recently, you’ve noticed that some users have reported difficulties navigating your site with screen readers. After doing some research, you realize there’s an increasing push for web accessibility laws across various regions. How does this impact your image SEO, and what steps do you need to take to stay compliant and optimize for both SEO and accessibility?
Exact Answer
Web accessibility laws require websites to ensure that all users, including those with disabilities, can access content. This impacts image SEO by mandating the use of descriptive alt text for images, ensuring that content is readable by screen readers. Complying with these laws not only improves accessibility but also enhances SEO by making images more discoverable to search engines.
Explanation
Web accessibility laws, like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the U.S. or the European Accessibility Act, aim to make digital content accessible to everyone, including users with disabilities. These laws have a direct impact on how images are used and optimized for SEO.
- Alt Text for Images: The most important accessibility requirement for images is the alt text, which provides a textual description of an image for users who rely on screen readers. If you don’t include alt text, users with visual impairments won’t know what the image is about. From an SEO perspective, alt text also helps search engines understand the content of the image, which can improve rankings.
- Proper Use of Image Roles: In addition to alt text, accessibility laws often require you to use proper image roles, such as using
role="presentation"for purely decorative images. This ensures that screen readers can skip these images without providing unnecessary descriptions, improving user experience and SEO. - Textual Descriptions for Functional Images: For images that convey information (like buttons, charts, or product images), alt text should clearly describe their function or content. This not only improves accessibility but also helps search engines index the image content correctly, making it more likely to appear in relevant searches.
- Legal Compliance: Many countries have passed laws that mandate digital accessibility, including image accessibility. Non-compliance could lead to legal repercussions or penalties. For businesses that serve global audiences, adhering to accessibility laws isn’t just good practice; it’s essential for legal compliance.
- User Experience and SEO Synergy: By improving image accessibility, you also improve the user experience. A website that’s more accessible generally has lower bounce rates and higher engagement, which indirectly boosts SEO performance. Additionally, accessible websites tend to rank better because search engines like Google consider accessibility as a ranking factor.
Example
Let’s say you’re managing an online bookstore that sells a variety of eBooks and physical books. You’ve recently added new cover images for each book on the site. You’ve noticed that some users using screen readers have difficulty understanding the book covers, and your site is at risk of not being fully compliant with accessibility laws. Here’s what you’d do:
- Add Alt Text for Book Covers: You make sure every book cover image includes descriptive alt text that includes the title, author, and genre. For example:
- Use Alt Text for Functional Images: You ensure that images used for buttons or call-to-actions (like “Add to Cart”) have descriptive alt text:
- Skip Decorative Images: Any decorative images (such as background patterns) use an empty
alt=""to ensure that screen readers ignore them: - Check Compliance: You run an accessibility audit on your site using tools like Axe or WAVE to ensure your images and other elements comply with web accessibility laws. This helps protect your business from legal issues and ensures your site is usable for all visitors.
By making these changes, not only are you ensuring compliance with web accessibility laws, but you’re also making your images more accessible to search engines, which can improve your rankings and visibility. Plus, your users can navigate the site more easily, improving their experience and engagement with your content.
In conclusion, web accessibility laws play a crucial role in image SEO. By implementing proper alt text, using image roles correctly, and ensuring compliance, you improve both accessibility and SEO. A website that is accessible to all users is also likely to perform better in search engine rankings, benefiting both your audience and your business.