Many webmasters choose to exclude one in seven of their target audience.

According to Government statistics one in seven people in the UK have some form of disability.
People with disabilities need to use the web like everyone else and usability is closely related to accessibility. It is not only those with disabilities that will benefit from improved web site accessibility. The aim of anyone implementing accessibility techniques is to make the target website accessible in a variety of different contexts and all users will benefit. For example, accessible web sites will render better on mobile devices.

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WAI) were released 1999 to make sure that any website is ‘universally’ Accessible. This means that the site is accessible to absolutely everyone regardless of ability or disability, and the technology being used.
The WAI standards have three level, priority 1, 2 and 3 which are also referred to as A, AA and AAA. The priority 1 or A standard is the easiest to reach and is recognised as the minimum standard by which a site can be considered accessible. However, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 were published on April 30th 2008, so this is likely to change.

As well as affecting your bottom line ignoring web site accessibility may put you on the wrong side of the law as you may be in breach of the Disability Discrimination Act.

A quick review of a web site can often spot many problems:

1.Make sure all images have alt text and if the alt text does not contribute to meaning of the page make it empty (alt=”“). Is this the case?
2.Do not use images to convey meaning when text would do. Is this the case?
3.Are all link names (anchor texts) meaningful? i.e. avoid “read more” and “next” links?
4.Do links with the same anchor text lead to the same page?
5.Links with different names should not lead to the same page. Is this the case?
6.Are access keys used? And does tabbing work in a logical way.
7.Does the page work with CSS turned off?
8.Can browser controls be used to resize text?
9.Are headings, lists and quotations marked up properly?
10.Are there text equivalents for video and audio clips?
11.Can animations be stopped?
12.Are tables only used for tabular data? Do they have captions and headings?
13.Is the language clear and simple without typos?
14.Are acronyms and jargon explained?
15.Are language changes marked up?

This excellent article was written by UKWW member tb987 who is also the owner of ????????TheHipZone.co.uk

UK WW: First of all, congratulation on your win. Please tell us a little bit about yourself, how long you have been in SEO etc.
Benj: Thank you. My first career was being a Chemist in 1994 but I did not like the 8 hour work in the laboratory and moved on to teaching undergrad Chemistry while I was taking my Master’s Degree in Natural Product Chemistry, but computers from hardware to software to graphics and design was alway a hobby for me and started running a business selling computers way back in 1997 which eventually led to stopping my Chemistry career in 1998.
From having a computer shop and Desktop Publishing (DTP) shop back then, the Internet was relatively new in 1997 in the Philippines and I was a few of the web designers that started making websites then not knowing that the future of my life will move more into this direction and will be closing my computer shop in the future.

1999 was the year I went full time with Web Design and Development. Closed the computer shop and started winning awards in designing. Although I heard about SEO already in 1999 from a book entitled “Net Results” by US Webs, which was the first book I experienced buying on Amazon, it was not really detailed and it really gave no significant information about it. All I knew about back then was stuffing the meta tags and that was it.

My real SEO experience started in 2004 when I moved from the Philippines to the United States and worked in a company in San Diego called Einstein Industries that did websites for Doctors, Dentist and Lawyers all over the US. Although my main job was a coder, making tableless CSS, XHTML validating websites with some design work, we were told to follow certain rules for SEO purposes. Which got me more curious and started learning on my own.
This then led me to forums, blogs and podcast and in my early days of learning, www.WebmasterRadio.fm was my top resource and the main show I listened to was SEO Rockstars with Greg Boser andTodd Freisen. That show used to be an active show and today, they may be less active and there are a lot of other good shows too like The Pulse, Shoemoney Show and others.

My First SEO client was a free client in 2004 just to test if SEO skills will work. My second SEO client was in 2005 and this time it was a paid client that was super cheap, just $200 bucks one time and was on-page only. Then prices just kept increasing then as my clients grew.

I joined several SEO contest in the past and where in every contest I joined, win or lose, I learn something new and is a good way to gauge your skills compared to other competitors.

Today aside from running my own small business, YDS Web Solution, Inc. (YDS Web Solution – We Make the Web Work – Complete website solution from planning to development and marketing of your website.) for small to medium sized SEO clients, I currently work for BusinessOnLine (Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Consulting Firm, Website Usability, Design and Development Services – BusinessOnLine) where I get to handle more larger, popular brand name clients being part of the SEO Team.

UK WW: When did you create your first website, what was it about?
Benj:
In 1996. A personal website, it was basically just some sort of resume, a photo gallery and about my hobbies, BMX and Martial Arts. First corporate website was for a network cabling company in 1997 as part of part-time work with the Web Philippines (www.webphilippines.com) where I worked for them briefly as my first Web Design job.

UK WW: What are you favorite SEO resources?
Benj: I can summarize that into: – Forums – Blogs/Articles – Podcast – Books – Personal Experiments – Face-to-Face conversations or Online IM chats.

UK WW: What are you favorite SEO sites?
Benj: That’s a hard one considering there are so many of them. Well there is SearchEngineLand.com, SERoundtable.com, WebmasterRadio.fm, SEOMoz.com are my favorite comprehensive SEO sites. Now there are tons of SEO bloggers out there that are too many to mention that each person has something good to offer.

UK WW: What SEO tools can you not do without?
Benj: For keyword research, I know everyone has their personal favorites, but I do prefer Keyword Discovery over Wordtracker, Wordze and others. I also created an API tool at BusinessOnLine that uses the Keyword Discovery Enterprise API that makes keyword research faster and more efficient and brings in other metrics from other sources.

For ranking reports. Well I know the majority probably uses WebPosition and there is a large number of IBP users but I am more of a WebCEO fan.

For Analytics, for my personal business clients, I work with Google Analytics and Enquisite. At my job where we work with larger corporate clients we use Omniture (Which bought Visual Sciences that bought HBX in the past) and also our own BusinessOnLine Analytics.

UK WW: There is this popular saying that content is king, do you believe in it?
Benj: Yes. People that think content is not king and they think it’s all about links, well the only way you can get good natural links is still with good content. I am sure many people can debate about this and say they can get 50,000 links over night, but this is still not natural link building.

For me Good Content gives you: – Good link baits – Better conversions, whether it is a sale or lead – Better viral spreading on social media – More return back visitors

UK WW: Who are your SEO gurus?
Benj: It depends during the stages of my SEO learning. When I was starting out, I liked listening a lot to Greg Boser and Todd Freisen. I liked Aaron Wall’s SEO Book. As time passed by, my main teacher was trial and error, keen observation and just keep on experimenting. Then I learn a few new lessons here and there from forums and various blog, but I have no main guru I listen to. I listen to everyone and I learn a little bit of something from everyone. And everything I read and hear, even if said by a popular SEO personality, I do not believe in it right away, unless I have experienced it myself so I like testing what other people say just to verify if they are true.

UK WW: Do you have a message for the other participant in the contest you won?
Benj: Winning a prize in an SEO contest is not important. Learning more in SEO after participating in the contest makes you a winner already. In an SEO contest, although you get to learn how to rank higher for a competitive keyword, real life SEO for clients may not be exactly the same. I may have won several contest, but that does not mean all my clients are always number 1. And SEO professionals that do not join contest does not mean they are not good. It just means they did not feel like joining.

UK WW: What was you thoughest challenge in the contest you won?
Benj: Not having control of people that wish to help me. I really appreciate the concern many of my online friends have although I sometimes wish they ad consulted me first before helping me because some of their methods are kind of against my own SEO philosophy.

UK WW: What are you going to do with your winnings?
Benj: I really don’t know. I just mixed it up with my Paypal money and I no longer know where it went since my Paypal money just goes in from various sources and goes out to pay various suppliers. So I just mixed it all up with my company funds and just treat it like any other company earnings.

UK WW: Will you participate on SEOContest2008 2.0 ?
Benj: Why not? Although I believe it will be hard with more people might be watching every step I make. I plan to concentrate more on coaching some friends of mine than trying to win the contest. But if ever I still win something then that will still be good for me.

UK WW: Do you have any suggestions for the organizers?
Benj: – Have a little break before doing the next contest. – I’d like it have really large prize and just make it annual, then keep on running new contest all the time with smaller prizes. – Do not use an SEO related keyword. Do something on social awareness talking worldwide problems. Epidemics, Famine, Global Warming, Oil Crisis, Stop War, Stem Cell Research, Alternative Energy, Stop Poverty, Solar Power, Wind Power, Geothermal Power, Hydro Electrical Power, World Peace, Animal Conservation etc. I’m tired of talking about SEO in an SEO Contest. – 2nd, 3rd and 4th prize had only a small prize. Maybe having an incremental drop of prizes from 1st to 4th would be better. And maybe a small consolation prize for 5th to 10th place. – Do not show the names of the owners of the site in the contest ranking page until the contest is done, although everyone is still required to register with their complete names. You will just no display the names as the contest is on going. – I find it hard “policing” sites doing blackhat stuff, that I even find it hard to police my own site since some people want to help me in ways that are not allowed. Since blackhat stuff exist in real life SEO competitors why not just allow it. I was attacked with a user-agent cloaked duplicate content but I did not want to talk about it that much and I am not totally mad at the person that did it to me. But if you just allow this instead of not allowing it, then in the next contest I will fight back with my own duplicate content machines. Just have it an anything goes contest.

UK WW: Thank you for taking the time take part in this interview.
Benj: Thank you too and more power to UK Webmaster World.

At UK WW, we love contest. You probably know about our contest for SEO which is currently going at the moment, its expected to conclude next month. We have another contest, this time for web designers. The web design contest was not sponsored but UK WW but by one of our members, gedtee.
The contest which will award £250 to the winner is to redesign the current website of gedtee family business website, a 25 year old furniture business, the business currently have a homemade website which gedtee himself designer, not being a professional designer like the contestant we are hoping to attract, it will not be difficult for a professional web designer to do better than what gedtee has done so far, you will see the current site on the link to the contest.

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• Register your interest at the web design contest thread
• Create a prototype (also know as design concept) for the design you want to enter into the contest in photoshop or your favorite image editor.
• If gedtee chooses you prototype, you are the winner.
• You turn the prototype into html, design the remaining pages of the site (only about 10-15 pages). And you get paid £250.
  Visit UK WW design forum to find out more about the contest.

Promoting your website using social networking sits is one of the most popular method to promote your website today. This week, UK Webmaster Forum members have been discussing how to use Squidoo to promote your website.
A new UK Webmaster Forum member, Roo contributed a very detailed tips and info on how to build a successful Squidoo page, excerpts:

I’m maybe not the most experienced or successful squidoo member, I’ve never got in the top 100 (overall, top 100 per category is easy in comparison!), but I’ve come close a couple of times and quite a few of my lenses get a good amount of traffic and some even earn me money! Hopefully I can share with you some tips to improve our output on squidoo. I’ll cover a couple of things a few people seem to have in common, but I’ll try and keep it short!

Modules – these are the bits that come pre-formatted with titles and suggestions for what goes in them – Make sure you do alter the default title of each module – If you don’t want to put anything in the module, delete it. – Have a look and see what modules are available and what they do, there’s dozens, if not hundreds! (many, many, many more than previously mentioned – just go to add module and scroll thru the tabs, each of which usually has a few pages too)

Content – same rules apply here as they would anywhere, without unique content you can forget about visitors, and the more content the better. If you have a lot of text, split it up and create a few more text/write modules to put it in. (it’s rumored that search engines like this as they give emphasis to the module headers in results), Add pictures to each write module, you know a sea of text isn’t inviting.

Affiliate marketing – Feel perfectly free to make it as commercial as you like, include the same affiliate ads that you have on your website or add others. The only restriction here is it has to be HTML, no java or iframes, no gambling links, and a few other common sense conditions. Avoid making it too spammy as if reported as spam it may get deleted along with your account. If you’re new to affiliate marketing using squidoo’s product modules maybe a good start, though as the bucks mount up (they pay in dollars by paypal), you may start to resent them taking about 50% of it! Amazon and ebay modules do tend to perform well, though there are alternatives to using the squidoo ones. Squidutils provides a nice tool to create similar links to amazon which you can add your own affiliate id to and link to the UK amazon, which the normal squidoo module won’t. The only downside using that tool is they take 20% of your clicks! You can also generate Ebay RSS feeds with your affiliate code and drop these in the RSS module to great effect!

There’s dozens of links I could place here to give you tips, show you tutorials and give examples, though am not sure I can post links being a newbie! Where I’d recommend you starting was by having a look at the top performing lenses by seeing what’s in the top 100 of the category you’re interested in and seeing what they look like.
I’d also recommend looking at some of the squidoo tutorials, there’s a great one on basic squidoo html, one on advanced squidoo html, one on tweaking the css, just for a start and these will really show you how to alter the look and feel of a page and optimise the html/css available. One that I’d plug, (cos i made it!), is one about using ebay rss feeds with your affiliate id.

You can read the full post here