Accessible, Search Friendly Code

Websites that use accessible, standards compliant, semantic code will get better search engine results.

Why? Search engines read the contents of a website automatically using search spider/crawler software. Search engine spiders and crawlers interpret pages in a very similar way to screen reading software used by the blind.

Accessibility is not only a legal requirement, it's essential for search engine visibility.

Barriers to accessibility and search engines include:

• frames and iFrames
• flash, audio or other binary content
• image heavy sites or images used in place of text
• content dependant on, or generated by Javascript
• broken links and poor navigation
• incorrect use of headings or tables
• invalid or broken code
• a slow or non responsive server

What else can be done with the Code?

Ensuring that there are no barriers is the first step, but more can be done. Pages should include all relevant tags (embedded data). Although these alone do not ensure a high rank in search results, they do help.

Additionally including a search engine instruction file will help the search engines to index your site, as will including a site map on your website and submitting a site map when structure changes are made.

Beyond this, the list of adjustments and tweaks that can be performed to optimize code is almost endless. The most important factor is to ensure that the underlying code of every page can be read semantically, in order and has meaning.

Going too far

Optimizing the code can be taken too far. Although achieving a high search engine ranking is important, this must be balanced with consideration for design, usability, and functionality. As well as being searchable and accessible, your site should reinforce your brand, be pleasant to use and promote repeat visitors.