Have you ever heard someone say that they felt like they couldn’t read a blog post because the text was too small, or the contrast wasn’t high enough? Accessibility is important for everyone, not just people who have disabilities. Accessible content is easier to read and understand. In this article we’ll discuss what accessibility means in relation to blogs posts as well as how to make your own blog posts more accessible so that readers can enjoy them better!
What Does Accessibility Mean?
More than 60 million Americans, are reported to have a disability of some kind.
As Shir Ekerling, CEO of accessiBe, an AI-based start-up offering an automatic web accessibility solution, put it when talking about blog post accessibility,
“The number of disabled users who are cut off from using the Internet fully is enormous. They are far too many to dismiss as marginal and irrelevant.”
Accessibility is the degree to which a product can be used by people with individual needs or disabilities. Accessible content includes images, colors, text indentations and anything else that may help those who have trouble reading regular blog posts due to reasons such as color blindness.
Accessible content means that the person reading the blog post can understand it better. Accessibility is important for everyone, not just people who have disabilities!
Are there laws or rules about accessibility?
No, there are not. Accessibility is a best practice that people who create blog posts should follow to make sure all of their readers have the opportunity to read their post and understand it better. However, there are standards adopted by the web community that you can refer to here.
How To Improve Blog Post Accessibility
The following are different things you can do when creating your blog-posts in order to make them more accessible:
– Make sure the text isn’t too small or hard to read. This may be a problem for people with low vision, impaired motor skills and other disabilities. You can adjust this by using font size as well as adjusting your margins and line height in order to improve visibility of content on screen.
– Accessible content also includes things like images, colors and text indentations. To be more accessible try using a contrasting color background as well as make sure that the contrast between each item on your blog post is not too high or low.
– Accessible content should have enough white space in order to separate different parts of the post from one another so that people who are reading your content can understand what you’re saying better.
– Accessible content should also include “alt texts” for images as well as captions for videos and other multimedia. This will increase the accessibility of your blog post by not requiring readers to rely on pictures or text exclusively to understand what’s being said or shown.
– Accessible content should also be adjustable to meet the needs of each individual. For example, someone who has difficulty reading text can adjust the size and contrast as well as turn on a screen reader in order to have their blog post read aloud for them instead of having to rely solely on pictures or images that may not adequately convey what’s being said. This is especially important for people with low vision, impaired motor skills and other disabilities.
– Accessible content should also be available for people with low vision, impaired motor skills and other disabilities. This means making sure that you don’t rely on pictures or images exclusively to convey what’s being said or shown in order to ensure that all readers can understand the information presented.
– Accessible content should also be able to provide the reader with links and references for additional information. For example, if you mention a study or statistic in your blog post that is not well known (or may not be understood by everyone), readers can then click on these links and get more information about what you’re discussing.
– Accessible content could also be available in different languages. This includes making sure that the blog post is written in a language that everyone can understand and including translations for readers who speak other languages.
– Finally, consider making your content more accessible by offering it in both video and audio versions in addition to the plain text version of the original blog post.
Not every point here will apply to your content, and some points, like creating video versions, may not be feasible. But the more you’re able to do to help those who are having trouble reading your blog posts, the better your content will perform. Many of these points are included in various areas of The Blog Planner, but I will be adding a specific checklist for accessibility review in future versions.
Making Blog Posts Accessible: What You Need To Know!
Accessibility is important because it helps everyone who reads a blog post have an easier time understanding it, even if they don’t usually struggle with reading. With this in mind, there are several things that people who create blog posts need to keep in mind when writing their own so that they can make them accessible. These including using contrasting colors, enough white space and alt texts for images. Accessibility is important, so now you know what to do!
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Hi Mike,
Great post! I have seen people talk about increasing blog traffic and performance, but accessibility is a less touched topic. So, thanks a lot for sharing information about this. I really enjoyed all the tips and I will definitely be implementing them in my business. I will also share this article with everyone in my network to help them increase the accessibility of their blogs. Kudos for curating such an amazing article. Looking forward to reading more of your posts.