How Does Web Accessibility Impact SEO?

What are the most important aspects of web accessibility in 2024 and how should this impact your SEO strategy?

In this edition of the Majestic SEO Panel, Billie Geena, Damien Robert, Heba Said and Heike Knip join David Bain to discuss how web accessibility impacts SEO.

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Transcript

David Bain

How does web accessibility impact SEO? Hello, and welcome to the April 2024 edition of the Majestic SEO panel, where we’ll be covering how web accessibility impacts SEO, and what to do about it. I’m your host, David Bain, and joining me today are four wonderful SEO and accessibility experts.

Billie Geena

Hi, everyone, I’m Billie Geena. I’m an SEO consultant and I’ve kind of fallen deep into the rabbit hole of web accessibility. So I’m happy to be here and to share and learn from everyone.

David Bain 

Lovely. Thanks for joining us, Billie. Also, with us today is Damien.

Damien Robert

Hi, I’m Damien. I work in Convatec, which is a Med-Tech company in the UK, part of the FTSE 100. I was until last year, the SEO Leader but now I’m the SEO and Web Accessibility Lead by full choice and I’d be happy to tell you a bit more about that later.

David Bain

Wonderful. That’s a splendid job title for this particular discussion. So look forward to hearing what you’ve got to share with us. And also with us today is Heike.

Heike Knip 

Hello, my name is Heike, I own The Good SEO Company and also I am an advocate for neurodiversity in the community. So, web accessibility is something high on my priority always.

David Bain 

Superb. Thank you, Heike. And another panelist today is Heba.

Heba Said

Hi, I’m Heba, an SEO Consultant. I’ve been working in SEO for 10 years. Lately, I’ve been interested in accessibility, as I have a visually impaired son. And this is something I’d love to discuss with you guys how we can make the web more accessible for everyone.

David Bain

So the first question that I’d like to share with the panel is what is web accessibility? And I thought we’d go back to Damien actually, because Damien, you’ve got accessibility in your job title. So I’m sure you’ve got a definition ready to go?

Damien Robert

Well, I don’t have a definition ready to go. I’ve got a shortcut definition that I love to use actually to put education in place in-house. Web accessibility is nothing more than web for all. And that should be understood like that and not complicated by other definitions. Sometimes it’s more interesting to understand from that point of view, or we can use the word universal web, let’s say, and this is it. Do you want your website to be seen by all? So then follow the paths of web accessibility, that’s what I would say.

David Bain

Web for all – absolutely love it, great definition there. Billie, tell me what are your thoughts on the definition of web accessibility?

Billie Geena

So, for me, it’s all about creating an equitable experience across the web. So we’re not excluding any type of user due to the ability to get attention, ability to navigate a site, or disability, so that we create a strong user experience for everyone. And as a result, it benefits other marketing activities, it benefits businesses, it benefits people, it’s just such a no-brainer activity. I don’t know why it’s not more talked about.

David Bain

Absolutely, and wonderful thoughts and a great little definition there, as well. Heike, what are your thoughts on this?

Heike Knip

I just can add to what they said before also, because I think it is making sure that websites are accessible for everybody that everybody can use them. And also, what Billie said, we should talk more about it because I also don’t understand why we don’t talk so much about it. Then also why businesses sometimes don’t make this a priority because we have such a big market share in the world that people that need inclusive websites, accessible websites are out there. Can’t add so much more to it because it is already defined perfectly.

David Bain 

Absolutely. And it’s not just doing the right thing. It’s doing the right thing for your business financially as well, as you say, I know there are so many people out there that would really appreciate this and engage a lot more with what you do as a business, your website, as a result of that being easier for them to interact with. Heba, what are your thoughts?

Heba Said

I love all that they said, actually fitted everything. But I want to add that it’s a human right to have accessibility in everything in life. So a web is something that we should include. And every business owner should include this, it’s human right for someone to be able to reach this business or to reach this product to buy online, like everybody, to search for research online, like everybody. I once had a chat with someone and he said that everything he gets is from Wikipedia only because this is the only accessible thing that he can use. This is something I found very awkward because there are a lot of people out there that share knowledge that can benefit someone like this. So it’s a human right that we should consider.

David Bain 

A lot of laws, a lot of what we have to do, as business owners, as website operators, comes from the EU, the European Union and the European Accessibility Act and forcing that sites are accessible. Accessible requirements will happen from June 2025. Damien, what’s this about? What does that actually mean in practice?

Damien Robert

It’s very interesting, the European Accessibility Act will be enforced in June 2025. As you say, David, because it’s a new law it doesn’t mean that it’s the first law in the EU. But the previous laws were more targeting the public sector, while the EAA is targeting private and public sector and in a wider range of requirements. So actually, accessibility is not only asked for the built environment, but also for lots of digital access. And also, because I know that sometimes when people think about the EU, especially in the UK, nowadays, they don’t think about themselves. But we are talking about a law that is concerning any business doing some business with any countries of the EU. So it’s exactly the same kind of setting like GDPR. If you remember it, I know that it’s been a little bit hated by people. Also, it looks like in terms of which of the businesses to actually comply with the law is going to be completely different this time, because we’re talking very much about people and probably opening the eyes of lots of people. The difference is that it comes in the public sector and private sector. So far, only the US has strict laws and is very demanding for the private sector. Maybe Israel too, if I recall, but not many countries. Until now the laws were really targeting the public sector, because to our understanding or probably misconception, the first need of people living with disability is public websites. So that might be true, but it’s so short sighted and I’m very excited personally about this new law in 2025. I think that it’s going to open the eyes and minds of lots of people, hopefully.

David Bain

Billie, I saw you nodding your head. Would you like to add anything to that?

Billie Geena

One of the big things that I’ve been trying to explain with the European Accessibility Act, is that this isn’t just an act that’s affecting websites. It’s affecting a lot of things in the EU, what you’ll encounter day to day. So, public transport, they’re required to make changes, not just on their website, but in the actual acts of being able to get from A to B. Adding things like headphone jacks to ATMs. It’s going to be changing a lot of things. So, it’s really important that any sector that’s required to undergo changes, also reflects that online. And I think it’s going to be a really big communication piece across the whole of the internet. Not just doing the changes, but also saying you’re doing the changes. So, you can actually help and explain to your disabled users. No, it doesn’t necessarily have to be disabled users either, just to anyone that might need additional support and understanding. It’s going to be such a big, interesting piece. I’m really excited to see this all pan out and see how it spreads. Because whilst we might not have to make some of the same changes here in the UK, because we left the EU, I’m sure as someone that travels and is a very anxious traveler, that there’s going to be a demand for changes that we see out there in the EU for here in the UK. I’m so excited to see just how all this pans out.

David Bain

Absolutely, especially as Damien was saying, it’s not just about you as a business that happens to be based in the UK, if that’s where you are, it’s where your customers are based. And if you’re doing business with people who are in the EU, then you have to be aware of what this means to us as business here. Heba, you’re the one that was nodding away, then what would you like to add?

Heba Said

I feel like when this is something that get imposed in the EU, it’s going to spread worldwide. As an international issue that happens a lot because I can be a business owner from wherever, Dubai, and targeting people from the UK, people from Europe and people from US. So if they didn’t include the accessibility to their website, and the products, whatever they’re offering, they are gonna lose a lot of potential clients or potential users for their website. So yes, I really didn’t know about this act before this event, and I shared it with everybody I know, because it’s something that I would love to see everywhere. I would love to get Google to impose accessibility as a ranking factor, so that people start to get their eyes open for this and start doing something.

David Bain

Heike, is that something that you’ve looked at?

Heike Knip 

Yeah, for sure. Also, from my personal point of view, because I’ve got neurodiversity myself, I have ADHD, autism, and dyslexia. For me, accessibility for websites is essential, because how to process information is so important. The only thing I would like to say is I find it always a shame that it needs to be forced by a law that businesses are starting to listen. It’s gonna be quite a big difference. It’s the same Data Disability Act in the United States, the European Act. Yes, I know, there will be companies and organizations in the UK saying ‘oh, we don’t do anything with the EU.’ But in fact, you probably will. And we will more than likely take over this law within the next coming five years from the EU to be more aligned with the EU, because we still trade with the EU, and they would like that we also follow the examples. We may have left the EU, but we are still quite aligned with it.

David Bain

Billie’s saying in the chat: ‘wouldn’t it be ideal if accessibility best practices were a clear ranking factor rather than just a supporting act?’

Damien Robert

I was a speaker at the International Search Summit last year, and Gary Illyes was there, actually. And then for the keynote at the end of the conference, there was a question about accessibility. Is it a ranking factor? Can you say it now? You know, can you just stop making it a secret, it must be. Gary said: ‘Actually, I cannot say that. I cannot say it’s a ranking factor, but I can say that it’s a fact of being a decent human being.’ And I thought that was quite a good flip to the question. To actually think, don’t do accessibility to have better ranking. Of course, it could actually maybe encourage more businesses to do it. And I’ll share that with you, Billie. I would love that to happen one day but maybe it will never happen. Because if the narrative is just to be a decent human being, then it would probably remain the narrative. I think in the upcoming days Google Ireland opens a new accessibility Discovery Center, which is also very interesting, coming from Google, and doing lots of lots of sorts of things to actually improve the accessibility within Google. Of course, it will probably impact the search engine algorithm. Fingers crossed, I think it’s probably already the case anyway.

David Bain

Let’s talk a little bit about practically what our business has to do in order to comply with any future legislation and just make sure that they’re doing the right thing for the user from an ethical perspective, but also a commercial perspective as well. Damien, what are a few things that the business should be doing now to comply with the legislation and ensure that their accessibility is top notch?

Damien Robert 

I think for me, it is starting with a conversation and a new dialogue, maybe with the dev team and senior staff. Everything starts with education and I saw that on my side, especially working in-house lately, with a proper conversation, talking about the web for all new compliance needs. Sometimes when we talk to other people, we can use different talks for different people to try to either touch their heart or touch their wallets. Or, different concerns they could have, web accessibility can really encompass it all.

It’s starting with a very good conversation about the story, why we need to get there and when. From that point, then the resources come along. I think a champion for web accessibility in-house is needed. And in an agency that can be one role or like me now just half of my role, besides SEO is really to champion web accessibility in-house. So I would start with education. That is not the only element, of course, but this is where I started. And a good web accessibility champion, couldn’t really unlock everything, budget, resources, everything.

David Bain

So as half of you is a web accessibility champion, what do you do initially, in order to encourage more people to think about web accessibility, get more prominence to the area, get devs, and perhaps other stakeholders involved in understanding how essential this is?

Damien Robert

Well, I tell the story every time. So I give the context. Rather than just giving a list of requirements, which could be possible and could probably work with small teams, but in a big company, I always want people to be motivated for the good reason. if they work for web accessibility, they’re going to work for something more beautiful than just actually writing lines of codes. And I think that’s important to get the motivation. So, I tell that story, or remind them about the percentage of people living with a severe disability in the world, I remind them about all the different glows, I remind them about the fact that it’s been 25 years that we’re talking about accessibility, and the web is still not accessible. And this is not acceptable anymore. I’ll go through all of this story. And after that, maybe I will give some examples. And we really make the separation between the technical aspects of accessibility that we need to work on and the content aspects. So everything technical goes for the devs, who will probably talk a lot to technical SEO people, and also everything around the content, how to make media assets, more accessible videos, images, and so forth. So, that’s how I tell the story. I tell it again and again, just to give context and, and gain motivation, and slash or buy in from other people.

David Bain

I certainly would like to hear specific examples from our panelists on examples in terms of what can be done to improve web accessibility. And how tangibly that can ideally impact the bottom line as well as make users more satisfied with the brand.

Heike, in relation to what Damien was saying there, about ensuring that devs really have that passion project in terms of understanding the value of accessibility can bring. Is that the kind of conversation that you have with devs? 

Heike Knip

Yeah, for sure. It is a conversation you need to have. I fully agree with Damien, you need to communicate with the community also. It’s so essential, getting the feedback from that. For example, let’s say something simple with dyslexia. Can we make sure that the screen can change colours, a black background with white lettering and changing it around to make it more readable and like that. But also in the conversation with your partners, like developers, or the organizations you work with, it’s also explaining why you do it. Getting them to understand what is the reason since let’s say, because I know quite a bit about neurodiversity. I tell them, about 25% of the UK population is more than likely being neurodivergent. So if you talk with all your stakeholders on this, and share it, it’s so essential. And other things. Your content, your copyright is talking about, making the text more clearer, more better to process. And there’s a ton of other things to explain, this whole list what can be done. It is quite important.

David Bain

In general, how does neurodivergent affect the way that you consume websites? You’ve listed some styling enhancements that can be made. Changing into black and white and vice versa. So are you talking about increasing font size? Are you talking about writing slightly differently as well?

Heike Knip

You can have a look at different kinds of fonts, make sure there are dyslexia or neurodivergent friendly fonts. So it’s easy to read. So sometimes I go to clients, and they come with these interesting fonts. It is not really readable. It’s the same with a bit larger fonts, it can be that you can have it discrete. But also the user experience is so important. I need to have clear steps. I can write a whole in-depth report, but I can get easily confused if it’s not a clear process. On the website, I need to have all the information there and other bits. So, I need support in some things but not in everything. But those are some of the things but as I think a million other things, and this is why it is important to discuss it with the community. Because everybody has different needs and different ways to approach different things to look at it. Somebody says that they know one person with ADHD. I say you know one person, there’s another 50,000 with different needs. And that’s why it is so important that we have this conversation and make the web as accessible for everyone as we can.

David Bain 

Yeah, absolutely. It shows you that it’s important to have these conversations because you were saying that if you’re neurodivergent, if you’ve got ADHD, then there are certain fonts that are easier for you to consume. And I didn’t even think that that was an issue. It’s so important not to have any preconceptions. You just have open conversations with people who are consuming what you’re doing and you try and ensure that what you’re delivering is satisfying them as best as possible. Apparently,

reading an article here, Sans fonts are more ADHD friendly. But perhaps that’s not across the board. But there are quite incredible elements like that you don’t necessarily think of beforehand. So you really need to have those conversations as you were talking about it.

What kind of conversations have you had about improving your website’s accessibility, and which specific elements that you haven’t thought about beforehand?

Heba Said

It’s part of communication. Business owners always speak with numbers and statistics. So this is something I always go through before I get to meet a client and talk about a website and how to improve their accessibility and their SEO at the same time. So we need to talk numbers, how many are you losing, if you’re not doing this, how many users you’re losing, how many dollars you’re losing. I know, it’s something that is essential. And it’s, it’s like being a good human and everything, but they don’t talk this language anymore. They talk dollars, they talk numbers, and they talk business. So this is how we get to the conversation of sorting this. The second thing is that it would not cost them anything just to add some aspects in their website, some elements. It’s going to be helpful for other users and for search engines as well. Because most of the elements that we’re talking about to make our website accessible, especially for the visually impaired, and for screen readers, it’s actually equal to being accessible for search engines. So when you’re adding anchor texts, to describe what link it is, you’re talking to Google or search engine, and you’re talking to the screen reader. The visually impaired people and the people with disabilities are going to know what they’re doing on the website. And where you’re adding alt text, or alt tag, you’re describing an image for the search engine, and for the user as well. So you’re having the best of both worlds, you’re doing what you’re doing for ranking good and getting new clients, and expanding your website and business to other people with disabilities and this is something huge. For me, it’s huge for the business owner, it’s money, you know.

I start with the easy stuff, I don’t like to throw all the balls in the ground. And then we have to add the developer, if they are redesigning a website, that’s a good point. So let’s start here. So if you’re a designer, you need to take care of the colors, contrast, and take care of the fonts, like Heike said. I always give resources to developers for that. So they don’t feel like it’s a heavy load for them. So designers and developers should be our friends in this. Because if they are not cooperating, and we’re not cooperating with them, we’re not gonna get anywhere. Coding actually, is the worst part because sometimes developers are like, I’m not going to put an extra code for that search engine to read the elements, or for the keyboard users. This is something essential that we should put, because there are many keyboard users. About 2.2 billion of the people globally are visually impaired. So most of them, they don’t use a mouse, they use a keyboard shortcut, the tab, index tab. And if the website is not accessible for this, you’re gonna lose a lot of clients if you’re an international brand. So that’s how we start.

David Bain

Billie, what are accessibility statements? Why is it important and how do you write one?

Billie Geena

So, an accessibility statement is kind of your written commitment to better your website or businesses accessibility practices. Whether they’re important or not, I don’t think I can give a proper answer because they are valuable, they are encouraged. They are often used as a get out of trouble card for many businesses where they’ve been caught out. They could potentially be in this situation where there could be a legal case for them not being an accessible site. So what they’ll do is say, ‘Oh, I wasn’t aware, we’ll look into this’ or put together an accessibility statement identifying that there’s a problem and what they’re going to do about it. Unfortunately, I’ve seen a few businesses in this situation and think that there’s an accessibility statement here. Users can see it if they want, or address it. But there’s no timeline on this. It’s not a priority. Why should I spend money on this right now? So, I’m a little bit jaded towards them. I don’t know if other people have different experiences and love them?

David Bain

Heike, do you have any experience with this?

Heike Knip 

I know a bit. I see it often, a lot of businesses, and I’ve also met some of them. They use it as a get out of jail card, but don’t take it too seriously. Because a lot of people think that people with disabilities are only a couple of people. So not in a rush. But again, it’s like what we’ve all been saying here, even if we take 10% of the world population has a disability, one way or another, visually impaired, dyslexia, etc., It’s a big group, but businesses don’t see that it is necessary to do this. I try to avoid these organizations, businesses, for sure, that are not disability friendly.

The changes are another big one. Sometimes, they think it is gonna cost them millions. Okay, it depends on the size of the business. But it’s mostly just the communication, how you communicate on your website, how you show things, or names on your pictures is such a big difference already for visually impaired people. And even people with hearing, hearing impairment, making sure that it is readable. Don’t use all caps, because that’s also one of the things. Because if you use all caps on the website, some readers shout at you, because they see it as shouting. So there’s a lot of things you need to have a look at. Businesses really do need to change their attitude, they really need to start taking this seriously, because there are many out of us. In the UK, I know, research is going on and the most conservative number that I know is that 75% of people with ADHD don’t know they have ADHD. So there’s so many more out there. There’s so much potential that business owners leave outside. It shouldn’t be about money, It should also be like what we said here about being a good person.

David Bain 

The law’s coming and the European Accessibility Act that we touched upon at the beginning means that the EU is looking to ensure that people have an equal opportunity to purchase or have access to a digital product or service across the area. What does that mean if the EU feels that websites aren’t complying with this? Does anyone have any thoughts on that?

Billie Geena 

So, I’ve got a great example about this. I’ve got more than one example of this exact same thing happening. But I’ve worked with numerous business owners and clients who have said: ‘Why do I want disabled person to buy my products?’ I’ve seen this most in the DIY niche selling electric drills, power tools, things like that. Why should I sell to a disabled person? Disabilities are such as spectrum.

I could tell in that client’s head, they are thinking of a person with very limited mobility, probably in a wheelchair, who’s someone who cannot look after themselves. I could see that in a client’s eyes that’s what they’re picturing. But it could be anything really, a lot of disabled people can manage and live in society on their own by themselves, they don’t need to be infantilized as much as people do. It’s important that our services do not exclude anyone. Even if, say this person was someone with limited mobility, they could still live on their own, they might not be able to use a power tool, but they can buy a power tool. They might have a friend or family member coming to build some cabinets for them. It could be anything, you do not know the circumstances of your customers. So to exclude them at any point in the journey, It’s just pointless. It’s ridiculous. It’s a bad decision on all fronts.

David Bain 

I’m just researching in relation to fines. So I’m reading an article that says as the EAA won’t be enforceable in 2025 specific details with fines aren’t available yet. But historical legislation such as GDPR demonstrates the fines for non-compliance can reach up to 20 million euros or 4% of the worldwide annual revenue of the prior fiscal year. So if a large organization doesn’t treat this seriously, it could be quite costly, financially.

Damien Robert

I’ve made some research for David about the fine price, because this is helping my story usually. So we’re talking about 100,000 euros for a typical fine in the EU. But of course, we don’t know how the EU countries are going to apply the EAA in June 2025. But I’ve read in lots of different articles and several official ones, that it could be that price. A point of comparison that could be interesting in the US with the ADA. It’s been going on for a few years. They’re starting at $45,000 US dollars, but that’s cumulative for all the noncompliant elements you have on your website. So there is a massive example of Target, which is like a retail company in the US. This is a rather odd example. I think it’s probably a 10 years old example. But they had to pay 6 millions of US dollars in fines for not being accessible for people with visual impairments. This is quite massive. And it was all about the lack of alt attributes on the images, which is always what we’re talking about when we put SEO and web accessibility in the same bag. So, these fines are not just imaginary. It’s already happening in the US and will become concrete in the EU for any business doing business with the EU countries. And I think that’s definitely an important element for us all to educate and raise awareness for people, as Heba said, who are more interested in business than being a decent human being. But you can reach out to both of these people because it will benefit them all.

David Bain 

Is it possible, is it measurable, that improving your web accessibility can actually benefit your SEO?

Heba Said

Yes, it is. Actually, it is the best of both worlds, you’re doing both things because a lot of the factors that are already a ranking factor in SEO are actually connected with having an accessible website. So if we start from here, if we start from these elements or these things, factors and go from there. It’s having a good content. A very easy to read content without any complex words for someone like Heike said, because we don’t want content that’s very hard for people to read, or complex words. When you add in bullets and listing in the content you’re targeting, the featured snippet. At the same time, it’s very good for people with disabilities to have their information listed, and easy to read and easy to get to. So you’re having the best of both worlds here. If you’re having fast websites, same thing, because when I’m using a magnifier, sometimes the website freezes, but when the speed is good, it’s actually working very well. So speedy websites are good for core vitals. It’s good for a search engine. And at the same time, it’s very good for people with disabilities and accessibility. So a lot of these factors do affect SEO, affect the ranking of the website. If you have all these technical issues fixed and all these elements fixed, you’re going to gain more users and get a good ranking factor and featured snippet.

David Bain

Heike you were looking to add something to the previous one?

Heike Knip

I just wanted to say that I also agree with Billie. Stereotyping is so horrible. I get stereotyped also when I say I have autism, they say how can you socialize and network because they think I just like to sit in my room all day, do trainspotting. I always use that a bit as an example. I explain, I can do a little bit more than that.

But also with Heba, what you’re saying is that SEO is already there to make things more accessible, because in essence, we are writing and creating something what people are looking for. So if we don’t make it accessible, we don’t do our jobs, right? Because we are missing out on what people are looking for. So it is so essential that we make sure that everything is accessible. Yes, I’m happy that there will be fines because if there’s no fines also behind the legislation, businesses won’t take it seriously. Again, what Billie said, a person that is in a wheelchair and can’t use power tools, that doesn’t mean they don’t want to buy it. I met a good friend of mine, I met him yesterday. Also, he’s in a wheelchair. He’s born without arms and legs, but he still can buy a power tool.

I should be shocked sometimes if I hear these things, but I’m not. Because I know it happens. And I think this is why we need to create more awareness. I also think that we need to educate our clients sometimes more. There is more than just a disabled person in a wheelchair. There are so many more. I have good friends that are from the hearing community, from the blind community, etc. And if you hear the stories, what they need to go through is why I am starting to focus also more on design itself, leaflets, and simple things offline. Such as a business card, make sure you have Braille on the back. So people with visual impairments can read it also, maybe 2% of the population can read Braille, but still.

David Bain 

Let’s finish off by asking each of our panelists to share one action that you would recommend the listener takes now to better prepare for the upcoming legislation, but just to deliver better accessibility in general, to their website. And then I’ll ask you to share your details so the listener can get in touch with you.

Damian, what’s your number one action step that you’d like to leave the listener with?

Damien Robert

That’s going to be a very easy one. I always say that we tend to forget that SEO is born from web accessibility and not the other way around. So check your title tags, your meta description, your headings, that all were designed for web accessibility as a first place, not for SEO, not for Google, for accessibility, because the Googlebot is actually deaf and blind. When we are working well in terms of SEO, and we’re really checking that we have everything for every page, meta description, good heading structure, we are already working for web accessibility and it should be reassuring for some SEOs here. Sometimes we have to switch our mindset and we think about everything that we are doing. The first function of the title tag was to actually have it on the tab on the browser so people with visual impairment know where they were using a screen reader. So don’t change lots but review all of that. This is good for web accessibility too.

David Bain 

Thank you, Damien. Where can people find you online?

Damien Robert 

On LinkedIn, just type Damien Robert SEO and you’ll find me.

David Bain

Billie, what’s your number one action that you’d like to recommend?

Billie Geena

My number one action is to spend some time manually auditing sites on both the desktop and on your mobile, download a screen reader, and navigate the site. Go back to the homepage and try to get to a random page just by using tabs experiencing the site that way. Then on mobile, try and understand how a mobile device could be used by someone with say limited mobility and try using your knuckle to navigate from the homepage to a random page. That will give you a ton of ideas on just how to improve things, rabbit holes to fall down, a lot of research, but that’s always where I start.

And then if you do want to find me anywhere online, I’m Billie Geena and on Linkedin it’s Billie Geena Hyde.

David Bain

Heba, what’s your number one action you’d like to share?

Heba Said 

I love what Billie said, this is actually my number one, but I have a number two as well. As a business owner myself, an independent consultant, I do an audit for every website I take. And there are tools I use that show how much accessibility this website is missing. So you can use WAVE or the Axe extension on Google to try and see your website if it says it is accessible or not. And there are many other tools that we can share later, like color, contrast, and font and et cetera.

You can always find me online and ask me any questions, my Linkedin is Heba Said and I have a website hebasaid.co.

David Bain

Thank you so much, Heba. Great to have you on as well. Heike, what’s your number one action?

Heike Knip 

I need to agree with Heba and Billie. I was also about to say do audits because that’s so important, having a look. But I think my second biggest tip is also to reach out to the community that will use it. Get feedback, where there are companies that can offer feedback sessions and share the information.

I’m more focused on neurodiversity. I’m in a group for neurodiversity, where you can just ask the questions, get feedback, and what can be done. That’s also part of the auditing, getting the feedback, making sure you’re more accessible, and just making the world a much happier place and more accessible place.

David Bain

And where can people find you?

Heike Knip

You can find me on LinkedIn. Look up my name Heike Knip.

David Bain

Thank you so much to our panel for that wonderful discussion. I’ve been your host, David Bain. You’ve been listening to the Majestic SEO panel. If you want to join us live next time sign up at majestic.com/webinars. And of course, check out our other series at SEOin2024.com. Bye, bye for now.

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