A 'targeted' visitor means that visitor has an interest in what you are selling or promoting, this is usually demonstrated by keyword searches at a search engine or by clicking targeted advertisements.

It does you no good to attract general traffic to your site -you want unique, targeted visitors actively seeking your product or service.

Leads - a valid email address usually makes best 'lead' since people can and do give fake names and addresses online. If someone won't give you a valid email address, chances are they won't give you their credit card to make a purchase either.

Email leads enable you to measure interest and to follow up with prospects. Once you know number of unique visitors to your site you can calculate percentage of leads you develop and concentrate on ways to improve your conversion by testing different offers and headlines.

Sales - number of sales as compared to unique visitors represents your most critical statistic because it tells you whether or not you've made a profit.

For every hundred visitors to your site, how many sales do you make and how much money do you net?

Most failed dot-com's never bothered to answer this simple question.

Selling on web is a 'numbers game' - learn how to make numbers work for you!

In Roberts’ accessibility section (http://www.seotoolbox.com/htmlchat/accessibility.html), he’s placed a link to lawsuit, if you’d like to learn more.

What if you have an image that conveys information, such as a pie chart, graph, or schedule? A simple alt tag description isn’t sufficient to convey that information adequately. Roberts explains a work-around for this problem:

“There are a couple of things you can do, with one being right in tag itself: you can use ‘longdesc’ element. The longdesc is actually a link to another page where you can lay out information in text format.

“Here is a sample tag:

“The problem with longdesc attribute is that it is not widely supported by assistive technology. As a result, an alternative convention is suggested, using a D-Link. This is a text link placed immediately after image. It is a link to same descriptive page contained in longdesc attribute. This way, you are sure that it can't be missed.”

Here’s an example using D-Link:

D

Some Accessibility Solutions Are Actually Beneficial from an SEO Standpoint

Since Search Engine Marketers often use alt text as an extra spot to place keywords, can it still be used in that manner?

“Bear in mind that it should not be only for keywords, because it really is an assistive aid. What I've done is something like this: ‘keyword keyword - link to description page’,” explains Roberts.

Roberts continues, “A link to a more informative text explanation of a pie chart or whatever can only add to search engine relevancy because you can make additional page focus on a keyword. Accessibility also applies to things like WAP, handheld devices, and telephonic devices.

“People need to see what your information is and how to get to it. The matter of tables is important not only because of accessibility but because it will actually be easier for search engines to get around in them. There is a brief example of this on regular SEO Toolbox site: http://www.seotoolbox.com/spider-friendly-tables.html. There is more complete information, with two examples, at: http://www.seotoolbox.com/htmlchat ables_layout.html.”

“After all,” Roberts continues, “which do you think will be better for relevancy? If a spider must wade through yards of code before getting to your content, or if spider can see your content first thing? The answer is pretty obvious.”

If you aren’t using Lynx, Roberts recommends adding it as part of your Web development arsenal for seeing how your pages look in a variety of browsers. (http://lynx.browser.org/)

Lynx is a free, predominately text-based browser that will give you an idea of how those with disabilities view your site. Many Web visitors prefer it because it doesn't support JavaScript, Flash, or DHTML and is free of popups.

For More Information

According to Roberts, one of best books on topic of accessibility is Constructing Accessible Web Sites by Jim Thatcher. The book just hit shelves and covers what you need to know in an efficient, easy-to-understand manner.

And, be sure to keep a close watch on Robert’s accessibility section of SEO Toolbox: http://www.seotoolbox.com/htmlchat/accessibility.html. He’ll be adding more information to section as he conducts chat sessions at Academy.

Academy students can attend any of Roberts’ upcoming chats, or even if you’re not an Academy student, you can read transcripts afterward at Chat Index area: http://www.onlinewebtraining.com/chat/chatindex.htm.

Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists, (http://www.academywebspecialists.com) has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com). She also teaches 4-day hands-on search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe with Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).