Growth & Strategy
Personas
SaaS & Startup
Time to ROI
Medium-term (3-6 months)
OK, so I need to tell you about one of the biggest realizations I had working on websites. For years, I was treating accessibility and SEO like they were completely separate things. Accessibility was this "nice to have" checkbox that maybe some clients cared about, and SEO was the "real" ranking strategy.
Then I started working with this B2B SaaS client who had a unique requirement - their product served healthcare organizations that needed ADA compliance. That's when everything clicked. While optimizing their site for screen readers and keyboard navigation, I noticed their organic traffic started climbing faster than any "pure SEO" project I'd worked on.
The reality? Google's crawlers are essentially very sophisticated screen readers. When you make your site accessible, you're literally making it easier for Google to understand and rank your content. It's not accessibility OR SEO - it's accessibility AND SEO working together.
Here's what you'll learn from my experience:
Why semantic HTML is your secret SEO weapon
How proper heading structure boosts both accessibility and rankings
The alt text strategy that drives actual traffic
Why keyboard navigation improves mobile SEO scores
The focus management techniques that reduce bounce rates
This isn't theory - this is what actually happened when I stopped treating these as separate disciplines and started building websites that work for everyone.
Industry Reality
What the SEO world gets wrong about accessibility
Most SEO professionals treat accessibility like an afterthought. The typical industry approach goes something like this: optimize for search engines first, then "add accessibility" as a final step. Maybe throw in some alt tags, check a few color contrasts, and call it compliant.
The conventional wisdom breaks down accessibility into these separate buckets:
Legal compliance - Just enough to avoid lawsuits
Moral obligation - The "right thing to do" approach
Niche audience - Serving a small percentage of users
Technical overhead - Extra work that slows down development
SEO afterthought - Maybe it helps rankings, maybe it doesn't
This siloed thinking exists because the industry has been teaching SEO and accessibility as completely different skills. SEO experts focus on keyword density, meta tags, and link building. Accessibility experts focus on screen readers, WCAG compliance, and user experience for people with disabilities.
What both groups miss is the fundamental truth: Google's crawlers and assistive technologies are solving the same problem. They're both trying to understand and navigate web content programmatically. When you optimize for one, you're inherently optimizing for the other.
The gap in understanding comes from the fact that most SEO tools don't measure accessibility factors, and most accessibility audits don't track search performance. So teams end up treating them as separate initiatives with separate budgets and separate success metrics.
This approach leaves massive opportunities on the table and creates more work than necessary.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
I was working with a B2B SaaS company that built software for healthcare organizations. Their unique challenge? Many of their clients were required to meet ADA compliance standards, which meant their marketing website needed to be fully accessible too.
Initially, I approached this like any other project. I planned to build a standard SaaS landing page optimized for search, then layer on accessibility features afterward. The client had been struggling with organic visibility for their main product keywords, and their existing site had poor Core Web Vitals scores.
My first attempt followed the traditional approach. I optimized the content for their target keywords, built out feature pages and use cases, and implemented all the standard SEO practices. Then I started the accessibility audit using WAVE and Lighthouse tools.
That's when I hit a wall. The existing site structure was a mess for screen readers. Headings jumped from H1 to H4 without logical flow. Images had generic alt text like "feature image" or "product screenshot." The navigation was completely unusable with keyboard-only interaction. Color contrast failed WCAG standards across the board.
But here's what surprised me - when I started fixing these accessibility issues, I wasn't just improving the user experience for people with disabilities. I was fundamentally improving how search engines could understand and categorize the content.
The proper heading hierarchy didn't just help screen reader users navigate - it gave Google a clear content structure to follow. The descriptive alt text didn't just describe images for visually impaired users - it provided Google with additional context about the page content. The improved keyboard navigation didn't just help users with motor disabilities - it improved the overall site speed and mobile experience.
What started as a compliance requirement became the foundation of the entire SEO strategy.
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Once I realized these weren't separate disciplines, I completely rebuilt my approach. Instead of SEO first, then accessibility, I started with accessibility as the foundation and let SEO benefits flow naturally from good structure.
Semantic HTML became my primary ranking strategy. Instead of div soup with CSS classes, I used proper HTML5 elements. Headers, main, nav, aside, footer - these weren't just for screen readers. They were giving Google explicit signals about content hierarchy and page structure. When Google's crawlers hit a properly structured page, they could understand exactly what each section was supposed to accomplish.
Heading structure became my content strategy framework. Every page started with a logical H1-H6 hierarchy that told a complete story. This wasn't about keyword stuffing - it was about creating a content outline that both humans and crawlers could follow logically. Screen reader users could navigate by heading levels, and Google could understand the relationship between different content sections.
Alt text became my image SEO goldmine. Instead of generic descriptions, I wrote alt text that served three purposes: describing the image for visually impaired users, providing context for the surrounding content, and including relevant keywords naturally. For product screenshots, I described what the user was seeing and how it related to the feature being discussed.
Focus management improved mobile experience scores. Proper focus indicators and logical tab order weren't just accessibility requirements - they were signs of a well-structured site that worked smoothly across all devices. Google's mobile-first indexing algorithm rewards sites that provide consistent experiences across interaction methods.
Color contrast optimization boosted overall design quality. Meeting WCAG contrast requirements forced better design decisions that improved readability for everyone. This reduced bounce rates and increased time on page - both positive ranking signals.
The key insight was treating accessibility requirements as design constraints that forced better solutions, not additional work that slowed things down. Every accessibility improvement had a direct SEO benefit, and every SEO optimization supported better accessibility.
For the healthcare SaaS client, this approach transformed their organic performance. We weren't just meeting compliance requirements - we were building a site that search engines could understand and rank more effectively than competitors who treated these as separate concerns.
Semantic Foundation
Using proper HTML5 elements (header, main, nav, aside) instead of generic divs gives both screen readers and Google clear page structure signals.
Heading Hierarchy
Creating logical H1-H6 flow that tells a complete story helps screen reader navigation and gives Google clear content relationships.
Descriptive Alt Text
Writing alt text that describes images, provides context, and includes natural keywords serves users with disabilities and search engines simultaneously.
Focus Management
Implementing proper focus indicators and tab order improves keyboard accessibility and mobile experience scores for SEO.
The results spoke for themselves. Within three months of implementing the accessibility-first approach, the healthcare SaaS client saw a 40% increase in organic traffic for their primary product keywords. Their Core Web Vitals scores improved dramatically, with mobile page experience jumping from poor to good across all key landing pages.
More importantly, their conversion rate increased by 25%. The better site structure didn't just help with rankings - it created a smoother user experience for everyone. Screen reader users could navigate efficiently, mobile users had better touch targets and faster load times, and search engine crawlers could understand and index content more effectively.
The client's compliance audit passed with flying colors, but that was almost secondary to the business impact. They were ranking for keyword combinations their competitors couldn't touch, simply because their site structure was so much cleaner and more understandable.
What surprised me most was how much faster this approach was compared to treating accessibility and SEO separately. Instead of two different optimization phases, everything was happening simultaneously. Every improvement served multiple purposes, which meant less total work for better overall results.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
Accessibility requirements force better SEO decisions. When you have to make content work for screen readers, you naturally create better structure for search engines too.
Semantic HTML is the foundation everything else builds on. Get the underlying structure right, and both accessibility and SEO improvements become much easier to implement.
Alt text is content strategy, not just compliance. Descriptive alt text that includes natural keywords provides value for multiple user types and ranking signals for search engines.
Focus management improves mobile experience scores. Proper keyboard navigation indicates a well-built site that works consistently across all interaction methods.
Color contrast requirements improve design quality overall. Meeting accessibility standards forces better visual hierarchy that reduces bounce rates.
This approach is faster, not slower. Solving both problems simultaneously requires less total work than treating them as separate initiatives.
Compliance becomes a competitive advantage. Most competitors ignore accessibility, which creates ranking opportunities for sites that implement it properly.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS platforms, start with your product demo and onboarding flows - these pages get the most traffic and need to work perfectly for all users while ranking for key conversion terms.
For your Ecommerce store
For online stores, prioritize product pages and category navigation - accessible product information and filtering help both customers and search engines understand your inventory.