One of many purposes of the world wide web was to help people to search and share information.  Since its inception, the Web is being used for numerous purposes like social networking, sharing data, pictures, videos, etc.  Web accessibility is essential since it is about making the net available for everyone people including individuals with visual or auditory impairments.  

Although some people can’t use pictures, movies, sounds, applets, etc directly, they may still use pages that includeAlthough some people can’t use pictures, movies, sounds, applets, etc directly, they may still use pages that include equivalent information.  As sites become more interactive and more visual, sites also need to become easier for screen readers to read.  There are a number of tools and services available to help increase the accessibility of web sites – these include web development suites and accessibility checkers.   Net accessibility is becoming a frequent concern for internet businesses.  Companies have an enormous chance to boost revenue by implementing some simple web accessibility techniques.  Producing sites with web accessibility in mind can also help with site SEO because it makes it easier for computer systems to understand the page. 

To increase the accessibilty of your web site there are a few basic guidelines to follow.  You will notice how similar to SEO best-practices these guidelines are.

• Inclusion of descriptive alternative text for images is good first step to enhance the accessibility of a web site.  For instance, the text equal of an up arrow that links to the table of contents could be “Go to the table of contents”.  In some instances an equivalent might describe the look of visual content or the sound of auditory information.
• Both accessibility and SEO guidelines state alternative text should not be used in decorative images.  
• It is a good practice not to use generic linking text such as ‘click here’ and ‘this site’ because it will likely be challenging for screen readers to understand the link context.   
• The page title tag is also important to both accessibility and SEO – it should convey the purpose of the page to the viewer.   
• Header (H) tags needs to be used to identify a page (H1) or new sections or subsections (H2-H6) both for accessibility and SEO.
• Each page should be tested without JavaScript and CSS, and should be created in such a way that a screen reader reads a page (think top to bottom)
• Each page should have correct META tags specified (econding, language).
• And each page should pass HTML validation.

Obviously there are lots of more things one can do to make sites 100% accessible, but with these simple steps we’ll have a good base to build on for website accessibility.