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Re: SEO and accessibility

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From: Ryan E. Benson
Date: Oct 21, 2013 5:21PM

I agree what Patrick said. I, too, haven't been on top of things. The two
things that are/were popular is shove everything important in an h1 (like
Patrick mentioned), and keyword stuffing inside of alt attributes. That is,
instead of writing alt attributes properly, "experts" advise using alts for
keyword stuffing, like you do with meta tags. When I tuned SEO out, people
were saying what Patrick said, clean structured code, generally fairs better

--
Ryan E. Benson


On Mon, Oct 21, 2013 at 6:37 PM, Patrick H. Lauke < <EMAIL REMOVED> >wrote:

> On 21/10/2013 22:56, Jan Heck wrote:
> > Is anyone aware of specific conflicts between SEO considerations and
> > accessibility considerations when it comes to HTML headings (h1 through
> > h6)? I'm working with a group putting together a WordPress site, and they
> > seem to be under the impression that SEO and accessibility are at odds
> > over the appropriate use of headings. I can't find anything that confirms
> > that in my searching so far, so I thought I'd ask here.
>
> It would be helpful if you could actually relay what the people in this
> group think, in greater detail...but I'll take a stab in the dark and
> rant from there ;)
>
> It used to be that search engines gave higher weight to any keywords
> found inside headings. SEO "experts" therefore often advised to stuff
> these headings with all sorts of keyword-rich nonsense in an attempt to
> gain higher ranking for certain terms. I've not looked into it in the
> last few years, but I strongly suspect that search engine ranking has
> gotten a lot smarter (as a direct result of SEO folks trying to game the
> systems). This consideration ("Make sure you have all your keywords
> featured in H1s all over the page" or similar) is, I'd posit, part of
> the vast amount of cargo-cult that SEOs will insist on.
>
> Headings are there to give sensible structure to content. Heading text
> should be natural and well written, and follow appropriate levels (h1-h6
> depending on nesting). Write for humans first...because well written and
> structured content will also get indexed properly by search engines, as
> that's what search engines are trying to ascertain through their ranking
> ("how valuable is this page for my human users"). Avoid any "tricks" to
> attempt and fool search engine algorithms. They're volatile, if they
> even work at all.
>
> P
> --
> Patrick H. Lauke
> > re·dux (adj.): brought back; returned. used postpositively
> [latin : re-, re- + dux, leader; see duke.]
>
> www.splintered.co.uk | www.photographia.co.uk
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> > twitter: @patrick_h_lauke | skype: patrick_h_lauke
> > > > >