Google continues to step up its efforts in the area of digital accessibility. According to their latest news, they have announced a number of updates to help make the digital world more accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. These updates have unexpected benefits for SEO and marketing, which we will discuss today.
Artificial intelligence makes the visual world more accessible
"Google's Lookout is an AI-powered app that helps blind and visually impaired people with everyday tasks. One of the new features of the app, "image question and answer," allows users to get descriptions of images regardless of the presence of captions or alt text. For marketers and SEOs, this underscores the importance of high-quality captions and alt text for images - it not only makes content more accessible, but also helps search engines better understand what is depicted in the image, which can increase search engine rankings.
Accessible Places on Google Maps
"Accessible Places is a Google Maps feature that allows users to see if a place is wheelchair accessible. It helps businesses stand out on Google Maps, improve their visibility, and attract a wider audience. Providing accessibility information can also improve customer trust and loyalty, as customers appreciate businesses that pay attention to accessibility.
Live Captioning for more people
"Live Caption is a Google feature that provides real-time captions for any audio on an Android device. This helps make content more accessible to people with hearing impairments or those who simply prefer to read text instead of listening to audio. Using subtitles can also improve SEO, as they provide additional text for search engines to index.
New accessibility updates in Wear OS 4 and Chrome
Google's Wear OS 4 offers a new text-to-speech experience that is faster and more reliable, which can make navigation easier for users with disabilities. On the other hand, Chrome now automatically corrects typos in URLs, which helps make websites easier to access and improve the overall user experience. For marketers, this underscores the importance of spelling URLs correctly and ensuring that websites are easy to navigate, which can increase visibility in search results and drive traffic.
Chrome has also added new features for TalkBack users that make it easier to manage tabs. This emphasizes the importance of website usability and accessibility as a key element in SEO strategy.
Improving marketing efforts through accessibility
Based on these updates, marketers can and should improve their accessibility and SEO strategies. Increasing the accessibility of your content not only increases its reach, but also its overall visibility in search engines.
Alt text, subtitles, and disability accessibility are key elements to consider when optimizing for search engines. Using features like Alt Text in images can significantly improve your SEO by providing a more complete description of your site's content for search engines.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that Google continues to improve accessibility in the digital world, and this not only helps people with disabilities, but also offers unexpected benefits for marketers. All of these updates improve digital accessibility and provide marketers with additional tools and opportunities to improve their SEO efforts. Moreover, they emphasize the importance of inclusive marketing and creating content that is accessible to all users. Ultimately, incorporating these features into your marketing and SEO strategy can help brands increase their visibility, expand their reach, and improve the overall user experience.
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