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How Accessibility Issues Are Killing Your SEO (And How to Fix Them)

WCAG-compliant websites get 23% more organic traffic and rank for 27% more keywords. Here's the data behind the accessibility-SEO connection — and what to do about it.

·6 min read·AccessiGuard Team
SEOWeb AccessibilityWCAG 2.1Organic TrafficGoogle Rankings

What if fixing your website's accessibility issues could increase your organic traffic by 23%?

That's not a hypothetical. It's what the data shows. A study by Semrush and AccessibilityChecker.org analyzing thousands of websites found that WCAG-compliant sites consistently outperform their non-compliant counterparts in search rankings.

And it makes perfect sense when you understand how search engines actually work.

The Data: Accessibility = More Traffic

The numbers are striking:

  • 73.4% of websites saw increased organic traffic after implementing accessibility fixes
  • 23% average increase in organic traffic for WCAG-compliant sites
  • 27% more keywords ranked for compared to non-compliant competitors
  • Only 4% of websites currently meet WCAG standards — meaning 96% of the web is leaving traffic on the table

Let that sink in. Almost every website on the internet has accessibility issues that are actively hurting their search rankings. And almost nobody is fixing them.

That's not a problem — that's an opportunity.

Why Google Rewards Accessible Websites

This isn't a coincidence. The overlap between "what makes a website accessible" and "what Google wants to see" is enormous:

1. Semantic HTML = Better Crawling

Screen readers need proper heading hierarchy (h1 → h2 → h3), meaningful link text, and structured content to navigate. So does Googlebot.

When your page uses <div class="big-text"> instead of <h1>, screen readers can't find headings — and neither can Google's crawler. Fix your heading structure for accessibility, and you've just improved your SEO.

2. Alt Text = Image Search Traffic

Every image without alt text is invisible to:

  • People using screen readers
  • Google Image Search
  • AI search tools (ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews)

A single e-commerce site with 200 product images and no alt text is missing out on hundreds of potential image search queries. Adding descriptive alt text is both an accessibility fix and a massive SEO win.

3. Page Speed = Core Web Vitals

Accessibility overlays and heavy JavaScript widgets slow down pages. Google's Core Web Vitals directly measure loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability.

Ironically, many "accessibility solutions" (like overlay widgets) hurt both accessibility AND SEO by adding heavy scripts that tank page speed scores.

4. Mobile Usability = Touch Target Compliance

WCAG requires touch targets to be at least 44×44 pixels. Google's mobile usability guidelines require similar sizing. Fix one, fix both.

5. Clear Navigation = Lower Bounce Rate

Accessible sites have logical navigation, descriptive link text, and consistent layouts. Users (and search engines) can find what they're looking for. The result: lower bounce rates, higher dwell time, better rankings.

The AI Search Revolution Makes It Even More Important

Here's what most people haven't realized yet: AI search tools parse websites like screen readers.

ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google's AI Overviews, and every other AI-powered search tool rely on structured content, semantic HTML, and proper labeling to understand and surface your content.

If your website isn't accessible to a screen reader, it's not accessible to AI either. And as AI search grows, non-accessible sites will become increasingly invisible.

This isn't a future prediction — it's happening now. Sites with proper heading structure, descriptive alt text, and semantic HTML are already getting preferentially surfaced in AI-generated answers.

What This Means for Your Business

Let's do some quick math:

  • Your website gets 10,000 organic visitors/month
  • Fixing accessibility issues could increase that by 23%
  • That's 2,300 additional visitors per month — for free
  • At a modest 2% conversion rate, that's 46 more customers per month
  • If your average order is $50, that's $2,300/month in additional revenue

All from fixing issues that were already hurting real people trying to use your site.

The ROI isn't theoretical. It's basic math: more accessible site → better SEO signals → more organic traffic → more customers.

The Most Common Issues (And How to Fix Them)

Here are the accessibility issues we see most often that directly impact SEO:

Missing or Empty Alt Text

SEO impact: Lost image search traffic, weaker page relevance signals Fix: Add descriptive alt text to every meaningful image. Decorative images get alt="".

Broken Heading Hierarchy

SEO impact: Google can't understand your content structure Fix: Use one h1 per page, then h2 → h3 in order. Don't skip levels.

Non-Descriptive Link Text

SEO impact: Google uses anchor text to understand what linked pages are about Fix: Replace "click here" and "read more" with descriptive text like "View our pricing plans."

Missing Form Labels

SEO impact: Poor user experience → higher bounce rates Fix: Every <input> needs a <label> with a matching for attribute.

Low Color Contrast

SEO impact: Indirect — poor readability increases bounce rate Fix: Ensure 4.5:1 contrast ratio for normal text, 3:1 for large text.

Missing Language Attribute

SEO impact: Google can't determine content language for international rankings Fix: Add lang="en" (or appropriate language) to your <html> tag.

How to Check Your Site in 60 Seconds

You don't need to hire an accessibility consultant to find out where you stand.

  1. Enter your URL at accessiguard.app
  2. Get your score — we run 39 automated WCAG checks against your page
  3. See exactly what's broken — every issue categorized by severity with specific fix instructions

Your scan results show you the exact issues affecting both accessibility and SEO, prioritized by impact. Fix the critical and serious issues first — they'll have the biggest effect on both your accessibility compliance and your search rankings.

The Bottom Line

Accessibility and SEO aren't separate concerns. They're two sides of the same coin: making your website work well for everyone and everything trying to use it — humans, screen readers, search crawlers, and AI tools.

The 96% of websites that haven't addressed accessibility are leaving traffic, customers, and revenue on the table. The data is clear: fixing accessibility issues isn't just the right thing to do — it's the smart thing to do.

Your competitors probably haven't figured this out yet. That's your advantage.

AccessiGuard scans your website for 39 WCAG accessibility issues and shows you exactly what to fix. Scan your site now →

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