How accessibility helps people find you.
Search engines and AI assistants read much of the same structure that screen readers use: page titles, headings, link text, and image descriptions. A page that goes past the legal minimum gives them more to understand.
<a href="/boots/brown-leather">Brown leather hiking boots</a>A screen reader reads it as a link named “Brown leather hiking boots”.
Google Search can follow it, because it’s a real link, and uses its words to learn what the next page is about.
An AI assistant finds it by the same name in the accessibility tree, the map of the page that screen readers use.
What search engines and AI assistants read.
Each of these is part of making a page accessible. Google’s documentation explains how search engines and AI agents use them too.
Page titles and headings.
- People
- A screen reader announces the title when a page opens. People jump from heading to heading to skim the page.
- Search engines
- Google uses the title and the main heading to write the link people click in search results.
Source: Google Search Central, title links
Link text.
- People
- Text that names the destination tells people where a link goes, even when a screen reader reads it out of context.
- Search engines
- Google can generally follow a link only when it’s coded as a real link. It uses the link’s words to learn what the linked page is about.
Source: Google Search Central, link best practices
Image descriptions.
- People
- Screen readers read the description aloud, and it shows when an image doesn’t load.
- Search engines
- Google uses the description, with the page’s text, to understand what an image shows.
Source: Google Search Central, image guidance
Names of buttons and form fields.
- People
- A screen reader says what each button does and what each field asks for.
- AI assistants
- Agents find buttons and fields through the accessibility tree. Google says a missing label can stop them, and people with visual disabilities, from finishing a task.
Source: Google, accessibility for agents
What a great accessibility experience looks like.
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which accessibility laws point to, set a minimum. A page can meet every rule and still be slow or confusing with a screen reader or a keyboard.
We call what goes past the minimum the accessibility experience, or AX: how quickly and surely anyone can find what they came for and finish, whatever they use to browse.
The W3C, which publishes WCAG, warns that treating the standard as a checklist loses the human side. Combining it with usability work and real people is what the W3C calls usable accessibility.
Links.
- The minimum
- Each link’s purpose is clear from its text or the words around it.
- A great accessibility experience
- Each link names its destination on its own, so “View” becomes “Brown leather hiking boots”.
Image descriptions.
- The minimum
- Every image that carries meaning has a text description.
- A great accessibility experience
- Each description tells a customer what they need to know, such as the product, its color, and the view.
Main tasks.
- The minimum
- Every control works with a keyboard.
- A great accessibility experience
- Searching, comparing, and paying are as quick and sure with a keyboard or a screen reader as with a mouse, and an AI agent can find every step.
More accessible websites tend to get more search traffic.
In 2025, Semrush compared the accessibility and search performance of 10,000 websites.
23%
more organic search traffic, on average, for more accessible websites.
27%
more search keywords ranked for by more accessible websites.
The figures compare websites. They show that accessibility and search performance go together, not that fixes guarantee a result. Content, links, and speed still matter.
Where this fits in the three paths.
Each path builds on the one before. A great accessibility experience starts on the second.
Path 1
Meet the law
Path 2
Make it easy to use
Path 3
Lead your field
Common questions.
Will accessibility improve our search ranking?
It can help, but no one can promise a ranking. Google uses page titles, headings, link text, and image descriptions to understand pages. In a 2025 Semrush study, more accessible sites averaged 23% more organic traffic. That shows the two go together. Content, links, and speed still matter. Read the Semrush study.
Do AI assistants send more visitors to accessible websites?
We don’t know of a study that measures that yet, so we don’t claim it. Google does document how agents read a page: they find buttons and other controls through the accessibility tree, and a missing label can stop them from finishing a task. Read Google’s guidance on accessibility for agents.
Is this the same as SEO?
They overlap. Search engine optimization (SEO) helps search engines find and understand your pages, and AI optimization (AIO) does the same for AI assistants. Accessibility covers much of the structure both rely on, and it helps people first. It doesn’t replace keyword research, useful content, or links from other sites.
Can an overlay widget do this for us?
No. An overlay is a script that tries to repair a page in the visitor’s browser, and it doesn’t change your code. In April 2025, the FTC finalized an order requiring an overlay vendor to pay $1 million over claims that its widget could make any website meet the standard. Read the FTC’s announcement.
Where to start.
Find out where your site stands. The free scan runs automated tests on one page, and tools test only part of the standard. For the rest, talk to us about testing by people.