Websites are a marketing piece that consumers use to learn about products and services. But, what if your website isn’t accessible to everyone? For example, what if your website isn’t user-friendly to American’s with disabilities that use screen readers to navigate the internet? Although many businesses are not in spaces that require ADA compliant websites, SEO and accessibility are imperative for every website.

Optimizing your images, videos, and other non-text elements for screen readers is a sure way to make your website more accessible. But, many times the way you optimize for a screen reader can conflict with the way you optimize for search engines. So, we’ve devised a list of do’s and don’ts to help you navigate improving the accessibility of your images, videos, and non-text elements without compromising SEO.

Do This

  • Do write alt attributes for people and not just for search engine robots. This way, when a person using a screen reader visits your site, the description of the image makes sense. See Figure 1’s caption for an example.
    A photo of a french bull dog laying down.

    Figure 1: An appropriate alt attribute for this photo is, “A photo of a tan french bulldog laying down.” This is a good alt attribute because it is short and accurately describes the image.

  • Do keep alt attributes short, sweet, and to the point. If you have a detailed photo and would like to add more information put it in a caption or in the body text. Most screen readers are programmed to read up to 125 characters in an alt attribute.
  • Do use the word “null” for decorative images. A decorative image is an image that doesn’t make the content of a website richer; it serves solely as a decoration. “Null” signifies to screen readers and search engines that the image isn’t crucial and it can safely be ignored.
  • Do use terms like “Figure 1:”, “Image 1:”, or “Illustration 1:” to describe the image you are captioning if you have many images on a single page. This way, persons using assistive technology will know exactly which image you are referring to.
  • Do provide full transcripts for videos and audio. This is twofold as it assists those using screen readers and helps search engines understand the content of non-text elements.

Confused about the “do’s” above? No problem, give us a call and we’ll explain them to you.

Do Not Do This

  • Do not use an alt attribute for an image with a link attached if there is anchor text near the image with the same link attached. Screen readers will read the anchor text and alt attribute for the image, so it will sound repetitive and weird. Instead, use “null” as the alt attribute for your image. From an SEO perspective, it isn’t ideal to skip an alt attribute for an image you’d like to appear in search engine results. In this case, we recommend attaching the link to the anchor text and not the image, this way you can optimize the image by adding the appropriate alt attribute.