It has been a legal requirement for UK websites to be accessible since 1999. All websites are expected to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ to ensure their websites accommodate all users, regardless of ability or disability. It’s estimated that at any one moment, 20% of online users are disabled in some way. This may be a temporary disability, such as a broken wrist, or a permanent disability, such as visual impairment. Just because someone is registered as blind, it doesn’t mean they can’t still see but perhaps needs to rely on a screen reader to help them with text on a website. If your website is not developed to respect this possibility then you are stopping this visitor from using your site, potentially losing a customer and every friend and family member that customer knows. Not to mention, they can make a claim against you and you could be liable to pay out compensation and be forced by a court of law to either remove or change your website.

Accessibility and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engine spiders are programs written and ’sent out’ by Search Engines such as Yahoo to read and index your website into their search database. These spiders can be considered blind and deaf as they cannot read the contents of an image or a flash animation at present. Therefore by ensuring your website passes accessibility for the visually impaired and hard of hearing visitors, you ensure that the search engine spider gets the same information. This improves the exposure of your website to the spiders and will often improve the potential ranking and visitors via the search engines.

We offer two eBooks for sale which can give guidance and code on how to help you improve the accessibility and SEO of your osCommerce site.

• Accessibility for osCommerce
• Search Engine Optimization for your Store

Filed under: SEO & Accessibility

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