Publishing

As a matter of fact, we could safely say that a non-accessible website will not even go too far. On the long term it will only damage your online presence and your business credibility.

Both users and search engines like compliant websites for various reasons.

Publishing a website that lacks accessibility elements could be in the detriment of your business. If your website lacks accessibility the users will not be able to browse it easily and they are most likely going to leave your web pages without taking the actions you want them to take.

Another positive aspect of an accessible website is that all the surfers, including those with physical and mental disabilities, are able to use it. For example, blind users employ screen readers or other such devices to decipher the contents of a website. To lead them easily through the pages of your site, you need to create an accessible, easy to follow, scanable structure. You’ll also need to stay away from needless flash; animated gifs (that distract the readers from your message) and you should also avoid cluttering your pages with too many images, banner ads and other such elements.

Then you should make sure that all your links work (why would you publish a dead link anyway?) and take care to write descriptive, relevant tags for your images, especially when those images act like links. The search engines see the alt text of an image link as anchor text.

Publishing a professional website is not as easy as you might think. You should also avoid using cheap software (like FirstPage) because, although it gets the job done, the HTML code is often a mess and the site you create with such a tool will not be all browsers compatible and will present many other technical problems in time.

A very good publishing platform for those inexperienced with website design is offered by Site Build It, but even this one needs careful attention and some of the sites created this way are not W3C compliant.

What’s the big fuss about W3C? When even the search engines recommend standards, then why not?

Besides, if your goal is just to make some money in your spare time selling your ebook online (or some of your artwork, handcrafted objects, etc) then Site Build It is ideal.

But if your aim is long-term success and you want to run a serious, branded business, then you should publish a website with an unique design, good technical realization and compliant code.

It’s only a matter of time till the search engines will give much weight to compliant websites. And the reasons are simple: the search engines want happy users and accessible websites bring a plus of quality and are a warranty that the website owners care about this quality and about their users.

In conclusion, if your site lacks accessibility and W3C compliancy, it maybe a good idea that you hire a web coder to fix these problems, then republish the site. Hopefully such an action will bring you better SERP rankings and higher conversions.