Digital Compliance
How Fixing SEO Supports Accessibility
What Google Gets, and What People Get
Our audits run a search crawl beside the accessibility checks, and the two lists keep naming the same problems. Our earlier piece, Accessibility Is an SEO Strategy in Disguise, came at this from the accessibility side. This note starts from search and looks at who else each fix helps.
Google can't see your page, and neither can someone using a screen reader. Both read the code underneath: Google to decide where the page belongs, a person to actually use it.
Six search fixes, side by side
| Search fix | For Google | For people | WCAG check |
|---|---|---|---|
| A clear, unique page title | Google uses it to write your clickable title in results | The first thing a screen reader announces, and the name on the browser tab | 2.4.2 Page Titled |
| Real text instead of text in a picture | Menus, hours and prices become words Google can index | A screen reader can read them, and they stay sharp when zoomed | 1.4.5 Images of Text |
| Descriptions on photos | Alt text tells Google what an image shows, and serves as link text on image links | Someone who can't see the photo hears what it shows | 1.1.1 Non-text Content |
| Link text that says where it goes | Link wording tells Google what's on the other end | Screen reader users skim lists of links, and ten that say "click here" tell them nothing | 2.4.4 Link Purpose |
| One main heading, then headings in order | Google can use a prominent heading for your result's title | The heading list is how screen reader users move around a page | 1.3.1 Info and Relationships |
| A faster, steadier page | Google says Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems | Less waiting on older phones, and no buttons jumping out from under a finger | No single criterion |
Where the comparison stops
None of this makes accessibility a ranking factor, and Google has never said it is. The gain is Google understanding the page better, the part both readers share. And the overlap has edges: keywords and backlinks do nothing for access, and keyboard focus and colour contrast do nothing for search.
The laws point at the same checklist
The five criteria in that last column are all in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the technical standard the AODA points at 2.0 Level AA, the floor each law below builds on.
- Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. Ontario asks the public sector and organizations with 50 or more employees to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the technical standard the AODA points at 2.0 Level AA. Under 50 that standard doesn't apply, but the Ontario's human rights law, which applies at any size and has no employee threshold does, at any size.
- Accessible Canada Act. Regulations from December 2025 point federally regulated organizations, like banks, telecoms and airlines, at CAN/ASC-EN 301 549, which carries Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the technical standard the AODA points at 2.1 AA. New and updated pages are due December 2027 for the federal public sector and December 2028 for federally regulated businesses with 100 or more employees.
- Americans with Disabilities Act, which has no company size exemption. No size exemption for businesses serving US customers. For state and local governments, the Justice Department's 2024 rule names Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the technical standard the AODA points at 2.1 AA, now due in 2027 or 2028 depending on population.
- Section 508. US federal agencies have been held to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0, Level AA, the standard the AODA points at since January 2018.
When we fix a search problem, we write down who else it helps. Most of the time, it's a person.
That person is not rare. Statistics Canada's 2022 Canadian Survey on Disability counted 27 percent of Canadians 15 and older with a disability, 28 percent in Ontario. Plenty of them are searching for a business like yours.
Not sure which of these apply to you? A lawyer can tell you what's required where you operate. Once you know, the fixes above are a good first step.
Want to know where your own site stands? See what the audit covers, or reach out and we'll get the ball rolling.
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