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School of Medicine IT

Actionable SEO and Accessibility Best Practices

Accessibility (A11Y) is a vital component of SEO. Accessible websites are designed to be usable by everyone, including individuals with disabilities. This ensures inclusivity while aligning with SEO principles. For example:

  • Adding alt text for images benefits visually impaired users and helps search engines understand your visual content.
  • Structured headings improve navigation for screen readers and assist search engine crawlers in indexing your content.

Beyond the required standards for accessible web best practices (as outlined in our Web Accessibility segment), below are some additional actions that you can take to further enhance your website’s SEO and Accessibility.

Improve User Experience (UX)

  • Use Semantic HTML: Ensure proper use of headings, ARIA roles, and other semantic HTML elements to improve usability for all users.
  • Optimize Page Load Speeds: Fast-loading pages enhance both user experience and Google rankings. Using numerous, very large images for example would increase page load times. Also consider reducing the total number of directory profiles, news posts, or video embeds showing on any single page with pagination or limits.
  • Audit Broken Links: Broken links harm user experience and SEO. Regularly review and update your site to fix broken links and remove outdated content, ensuring visitors can access accurate information. The easiest way to find broken links is to take time to click around your website – focusing on the most trafficked pages. Another way is to use our 404 Error Tool to look for errors that could be a result of broken links.
  • Align Navigation with Page Structure: Organize your navigation menus to match your site’s hierarchy. This helps users find content easily and signals structure to search engines.

Improve Crawlability and Indexing

  • Logical Page Titles, Slugs, and URL Structures: Use clear, descriptive titles and URLs to help users and search engines understand your content. For example, a page structure with slugs like: /medicine/education/residency/curriculum indicates that the page is about “the curriculum” for the “residency” which is part of “education” in “medicine.”
  • Leverage XML Sitemaps: Our websites automatically generate XML sitemaps to ensure that all published pages, events, posts, profiles, etc. are discoverable by search engines – even if they’re not linked in your site’s navigation menu or from other pages.
  • Monitor for Orphaned Pages: Identify and address pages that aren’t linked anywhere but are still indexed through the sitemap. These pages can confuse users and dilute your site’s SEO value.
  • Avoid Duplicate Content: Ensure all content is unique. For similar topics across multiple URLs, tailor content to specific audiences or consolidate to a single, authoritative page.

Enhance Mobile Optimization

  • Design Mobile-Friendly Pages: Use responsive designs and content layouts, like those in the School of Medicine’s Cells Plugin, to ensure optimal display across devices.
  • Adopt Mobile-First Principles: Google prioritizes mobile-first indexing, so accessible, mobile-friendly designs will improve your SEO performance. With 50% of visitors using mobile devices, prioritizing mobile usability will also align your SEO efforts with your audience needs.
  • Audit Captions and Transcripts
    • Provide Captions for Videos: Enhance usability and SEO by adding captions to videos. Learn more about video captioning
    • Include Audio Transcripts: Text-based transcripts improve accessibility and allow search engines to crawl and index your audio content.

Continually Cleanup Content

  • Download Outdated Content: Remove and archive old draft pages, past events, or content that no longer attracts traffic outside of your WordPress website.
  • Consolidate Low-Traffic Pages: Rewrite, merge, or delete pages with minimal engagement to improve overall site relevance and search rankings.
  • Use Analytics Tools: Leverage tools like Google Analytics to identify pages that need updating or removal based on traffic patterns.

Learn more about cleanup strategies for your website

Streamline Plugins and Media

  • Deactivate Unused Plugins: Remove unused WordPress plugins to enhance site security and performance.
  • Clean the Media Library: Regularly delete outdated or unused media files, as all uploaded items are discoverable by search engines. Ensure all media items comply with accessibility standards and copyright regulations.
  • Ensure A11Y Compliance for Media: Confirm that all uploaded media items (like documents) are accessible, with alt text for images and captions for videos.
  • Optimize Site Navigation