Keyboard First: Maxwell Ivey on Accessibility as an SEO Advantage

Keyboard first, headings second. Maxwell Ivey, The Blind Blogger, is almost totally blind and consults on digital accessibility. He walks Jeremy Rivera through how a screen reader actually moves through your site, and why most of the fixes are ones an SEO already owns.

Maxwell has been a carnival owner, an amusement equipment broker and a life goals coach. Now he writes, speaks and consults on accessibility, and speaks to teams about why it's in every business's interest.

Read the full recap on Unscripted SEO.

In this episode

• Why most inaccessible sites aren't inaccessible on purpose
• Keyboard navigation first, because the mouse fails at "the last button of a checkout system"
• The order a screen reader reads your page, and why the logo alt text usually says "logo" (the 20-minute screen reader audit is on SEO Arcade)
• Why headings are the one fix he'd pick first
• Alt text that says why the image is there, and his 50/50 split between description and keywords
• The disability tax: why people with disabilities overpay and stay loyal
• A truck sale decided by physical buttons, and who is really filling your cart
• Minimalism, minimalism, minimalism

Quotes

"We can't always depend on the mouse or the track pad, but we can always depend on the keyboard."

"When it comes to consumer loyalty, we will actually overpay."

"Making the most important thing the most important thing."

More on making pages readable to machines: Erika Braeger on machine readability.

Find Maxwell's show, The Accessibility Advantage, and his older writing at The Blind Blogger.