How often do you think about your web page’s SEO? Probably quite a bit. We want our pages to perform well, reach a wider audience, and help our products grow. Strong SEO is one of the main ways to achieve that.

Let me ask you another question, when was the last time you thought about how users interact with your site? Chances are, it’s been a while, and you probably don’t think about it as often as you do SEO.

Accessibility (or a11y, for short) often isn’t a major concern for front-end teams. After all, if the site works fine when we test it ourselves, then it must work fine for everyone else too, right? Wrong. It's impossible to build a truly great website without putting users (all users!) at the center of your design and development process. Every line of code we write should be in service of the user, and that’s something we should never forget.

Here’s the kicker: accessibility and SEO often go hand in hand. They share the same core goal: making content understandable, navigable, and usable. A well-structured and user-friendly site tends to be better indexed by search engines, thanks to clear hierarchy and semantics. Accessibility shouldn't be something you add after launch just because your site isn’t performing well. Take care of accessibility from the very beginning, and SEO will often benefit as a natural side effect.

Don’t believe me? Let’s explore some best practices in accessibility and how they can also improve your SEO.

Use semantic HTML

The first recommendation is an obvious one, so obvious that many people take it for granted: use semantic HTML. Write code that reflects the actual purpose of the element. Not everything should be a <div>. Think about the component you're building and how users will interact with it. For example, use the <nav> tag for navigation bars. A sidebar or a secondary menu? Consider using an <aside>. These small decisions matter.

Semantic HTML not only improves navigation and helps screen readers better describe content, but it also provides search engines with a clearer understanding of your page’s structure. That leads to better usability, more accurate indexing, and often, improved performance. In other words, it’s good for everyone.

Label your components

However, components can sometimes be too complex to rely on semantic HTML alone. That’s where labels come in. Every interactive element (buttons, inputs, toggles, etc.) must be clearly labeled so that all users, regardless of their abilities, can understand what the element does. Clear labeling also gives search engines additional context, which can improve indexing.

Labeling goes beyond just form fields. For example, images often require alt text, and this isn’t just a checkbox to make the linter happy. Don’t write “Image 1” just to silence an error, actually describe what’s happening in the image. Be as descriptive as necessary. Think of users with visual impairments, alt text is often the only context their screen reader will provide.

But alt text isn’t just for screen readers. Imagine you’re browsing the web on a slow connection and images fail to load. If the fallback alt text says “Photo 4”, that tells you nothing. But a description like “Smartwatch displaying heart rate and step count on home screen” gives meaningful context even when the image is missing.

The same principle applies to links. Search engines need to find and follow your anchor tags. This is what we call crawlability. To ensure this, your links should use an href attribute pointing to a valid URL (or internal route in a SPA), and the anchor text itself should be meaningful. Avoid vague text like “Click here” or “Read more”. Instead, use something like “Learn more about web accessibility” to provide both users and search engines with useful information.

Test your page’s structure

A webpage will perform better if search engines can index it effectively. The more structured your page is, the easier it becomes for search engines to understand and index its content.

One simple way to test your page’s structure is to try using it without a mouse. If your site is fully navigable using only the keyboard, that’s a strong indication of a clear hierarchy and well-organized elements. And that’s a win-win: it improves both your SEO and the user experience for people with mobility impairments or who rely on assistive tech.

Ensure your content is readable

Highly accessible websites offer a better experience for the user. In turn, this means accessibility impacts SEO. That’s why we need to think through every aspect when designing and building a website. For example, your content should be readable by everyone. Make sure text has sufficient contrast with its background. A good practice is to avoid placing text directly over images and to aim for a contrast ratio of at least 7:1 for body text. This benefits everyone, but especially users with visual impairments or color blindness.

Keep it simple

To finish on a high note, here’s a somewhat controversial recommendation: stop your page from doing more than it needs to.

Adding videos and animations can make your site look attractive and modern, but they also add complexity and increase load times. Think about users visiting your site on slow connections, they might have to wait ages just to see anything. Or users relying on screen readers, who have to bear through unnecessary content that adds no value.

You can take this even further: try to minimize your use of JavaScript. You don’t need a dedicated framework or library for every part of your site. Simpler applications usually have better structure, lighter codebases, faster load times, and consequently, improved performance and SEO.

Conclusion

Of course, this is just one part of the picture. There’s a lot more to both accessibility and SEO than what we've covered here. Things like internationalization, GEO, WCAG compliance, and performance optimization also play a big role. But that's a story for another day.

What's for sure is that accessibility is not a small detail to address at the end of a project, it should be a primary concern throughout the entire development process. We write our apps for our users, so we must build them with our users in mind.

When it comes to accessibility, you might think we’re focusing on a small, niche segment of users, rare or exceptional cases. But they’re far from edge cases. You may think of them as black swans, unexpected outliers that might, eventually, make a difference. But they’re more than that, they’re real people who care enough to engage with our product. And by designing for their needs, we don’t just include them, we create better experiences for everyone.

Don’t just focus on optimization, focus on inclusion. Consider everyone: people with visual impairments, reduced mobility or motor skills, slow internet connections, different device sizes, and more. Take every scenario into account. After all, better accessibility and inclusivity means less frustration, and that leads to happier users who spend more time engaging with our product. That’s the best outcome for everyone, isn’t it?