Google - Your Accessible Web Design Girlfriend

Owning a website and trying to get it to rank with Google is an awful lot like being a teenage boy trying to lose his cherry.

Google have got something you want and to get it you're either going to have to be very charming or you’re going to have to stump up a lot of cash.

One way is going to get guaranteed results but fill you with a sense of shame; the other is altogether more rewarding and free (sort of). In the world of search, this is the distinction between paid search marketing and natural search optimization: paying Google directly or working on having content Google deem worthy of recognition.

Assuming he wants to go the natural route, our teenage boy needs two things to get the girl: an attractive package and lots of other people telling her he’s got an attractive package.

But there’s a secret which is often overlooked (you may want to put on Lionel Richie’s "Hello" at this point) -the girl of your dreams is blind.

Which means that fancy clothes and £l00 haircuts just won't wash with her. So how do you convince her? Firstly, get lots of other people to send her in your direction (inbound links) and secondly, you need to let her know that what's on the inside is more important than the packaging (content over style).

How does this translate into action for your website?

1. Make sure all your text is readable

Blind people access the internet by using screen readers. These are pieces of software that scan the text on the page and create synthesized speech, which is read to the user.

Google access your site using "spiders" who crawl over your pages looking for content.

The temptation of many designers - especially those with a print background - is to corral important textual elements such as headings, menus and slogans, into looking exactly how they want. This is usually achieved by using Adobe Flash or by putting the text inside an image.

Googlina, like all blind users, struggles with Adobe Flash and can't see what's in your images at all.

The lesson? Deliver textual content as text not images.

2. Organise your pages

HTML (the "language" used to describe a web page to your browser) was intended as a means to exchange documents over the internet. Over the years we've extended the capabilities of the web beyond recognition, but a web page is still at heart a document and as such requires structure: clear, meaningful headings, a logical order and semantic organisation.

This helps both blind and sighted users discern the structure of your content and gives Google plenty of hints as to what your content is all about.

3. Make your link text meaningful

Those screen readers mentioned earlier often have a function to run through the content of a page and pick out links within it. These are then read out before anything else to allow the user to choose to follow them. Imagine how frustrating it would be to be read something like this "home, about us, our services, testimonials, contact us, click here, click here, click here, click here, follow this link, find out more, click here, click here".

Links need to be meaningful even when stripped of their visual context. And guess who else likes to be told what’s behind a link? Googlina! And in fact, having meaningful keywords in both your internal and external links is one of the most important factors in getting your site up the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

So there you have three tips for getting jiggy with Googlina. There are many more benefits to designing your site to meet accessibility standards:

• compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act (which all websites should have been doing since 1996)


• the rosy glow of having done something worthy


• reaching all your potential market (there are approximately 10 million UK residents registered as disabled)


• studies have shown that a website designed with accessibility in mind is likely to retain 30% more customers than one that isn't

If we design a website to be accessible, we've automatically designed a search optimized website.

If you'd like to discuss how Dreamberry Design can help you pull Googlina (we can also dress you in those fancy clothes and get you that £100 haircut for those who are able to see your site), please get in touch.

Web Designers

You need a website. You've realised that it's a job for professionals. Step one overcome. But now comes the difficult part: choosing your web designer. Far be it from me to try and influence your decision, but here are some essential qualities to look for in your web designer.

First off, height is important. Your web designer should not be too tall or else they're likely to be too far away from the screen to be able to work effectively. Similarly they shouldn't be too small as they won't see over the desk. An ideal height for a web designer is about 5 feet 10 inches.

An often overlooked aspect of the design process is the designer's sporting allegiances. For instance, a Manchester United fan might be in such a cloud of smug superiority that (s)he expects the project to get to number one on Google every year and is slightly disappointed if for instance they only get to number one on Ask Jeeves and come second in Google. They probably just sit back and wait for it all to happen. A Torquay United fan on the other hand may be so resigned to failure that they daren't invest any energy in trying to produce a result. Bona fide empirical studies have conclusively shown that, due to their ideal combination of impassioned optimism and diligent pessimism, Manchester City fans make the best web designers.

Have you ever considered an ideal weight for your prospective web designer? No? Then you could be in danger of making a critical error. A web designer who is too slim has obviously spent far too much time away from their desk. Conversely, an obese web designer may be in danger of collapsing before your project is complete. Your web designer should ideally have a BMI of around 28. This is indicative of a web designer who has spent many hours in front of a web browser learning their craft.

Your web designer should have a pleasant sounding first name, something like Phil, which is Greek for "love" and a more austere surname of French origin, like Houghton, which indicates a level of seriousness not always present in his blog entries. Your designer should have around 6 years of programming experience working on a mission critical banking application with one of the big banks, for instance, HSBC. This would indicate they have a serious approach to coding in an efficient, thorough and robust manner. Finally they should own a company that has a name like Dreamberry as companies called Dreamberry have been proven by independently audited studies to be up to 5 times better than companies not called Dreamberry.

So that's "web designer Manchester City fan Dreamberry Phil Houghton BMI of around 28 5 feet 10 inches HSBC" then?