A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to guest lecture before the Web Design students at Wake Technical Community College on the similarities between Usability, Accessibility, and SEO, a topic I first addressed here in 2009. Since my initial blog post, I assembled a talk, which I presented at BarCampRDU, and at Internet Summit 2010 in Raleigh last November.

Each search engine uses a different algorithm—the software that determines which pages turn up for any search. That’s why results on Google are different from those of Bing, and other competing search engines. As a significant business asset, these algorithms are kept secret, though it is suspected they receive updates often. Generally, the updates are minor, and difficult for the average user to notice. Google rolled out an update last week, but this one was different, and people took notice.

Last year I started thinking about the similarities between Usability, Accessibility, and SEO, and posted the first of what I hoped to be a series of articles on the subject. Since then, I assembled a talk, which I presented at BarCampRDU in 2009 and 2010 and am preparing to give at Internet Summit 2010 in Raleigh this week. This post will provide some additional resources as well as a copy of my slides.

A peek at the search engine optimization tools and resources we use at DesignHammer to perform SEO.

Black hat SEO has a negative reputation, and rightly so: It's a shady set of deceptive practices that degrade the user experience and are adopted mostly to make a quick buck. To keep a business legitimate and afloat on the Web, avoid black hat SEO techniques and embrace white hat SEO techniques.

What could Usability, Accessibility, and SEO (search engine optimization) have in common? Besides industry jargon that website designers/developers need to know, they are in some ways three aspects of the same process.