You want every single website visitor to have a positive experience on your website. In order to make that happen it has to be accessible by everyone. Here are seven easy strategies to make your website accessible.

1. CAPTCHA – If you use a CAPTCHA to verify that a user is a person and not a computer or a program, you may be eliminating some folks from a user experience. Those who cannot read the CAPTCHA code may be unable to enter it correctly. Thus they won’t have access to the information. You can add an audio element to your CAPTCHA so visitors can hear the code and then successfully type it into their computer. You receive verification. They receive access. Win/win!

2. Tagging photos – If your images don’t load properly or a user has them blocked, they’re missing out on part of your website. If you simply add an alt tag to your images, then everyone is able to experience your website fully. An alt tag tells your visitors what the image is if it cannot be displayed or viewed. The Americans with Disabilities Act dictates that all images must have an alt tag.

3. Small files and quick download/upload times – Large graphics and files slow a user’s ability to upload your website. Their system may simply not be able to access your site. If you have large files you’re therefore making your site inaccessible to many. Make sure your website images, files and graphics are all as small as they can be. Quick upload times are appreciated by all.

4. Standard files – Make sure any content published or available on your website is available in a readily accessible format. For example, PDF documents are easily viewed by any system. MS Word files or WordPerfect files are not.

5. Accessible navigation – Make sure each button, category, or action step is easy to find and understand. The more straightforward your website navigation, the easier it will be for each and every visitor to access your site’s pages.

6. Label all form input elements – If you have a form for visitors to fill out, make sure each element of your form is labeled. This will ensure your visitors know what information is supposed to go into the form.

7. Make links obvious – If you have links for visitors to click on, make sure they are obvious. Text links, embedded or otherwise, all need to stand out from the rest of the content. Consider bold, underlined or colored formatting to set them apart.

The more accessible your website, the better your user’s experience. Make sure each and every visitor, regardless of their ability or technology, can experience all your site has to offer.

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Local portal websites are often much easier to make, generate traffic for and generate income from than other types of website. Your competition is much scarcer, because few internet marketers are willing to do the work of monetizing a portal website – which is actually quite easy and profitable.

What is a portal website and how can you make money from it? Here’s a detailed overview.

=> What Is a Local Portal Website?

A local portal website is simply a location-specific guide. Often times the location-specific guide will also be industry specific.

For example, a portal website might be as broad as “Guide to San Francisco.” It could also be more specific, such as a guide to “Pizzas in New York.” Or “Spas in Boston.”

Naturally, the broader your topic, the harder it will be to rank for it.

=> Monetizing a Local Portal Website

This is the kicker. The monetization is the reason why local portal websites are such great online businesses.

The best way to monetize a local portal website is through direct advertisement from local businesses. These are businesses that are often paying as much as $300 to $500 for ads in the Yellow Pages, which really bring them no traffic.

If you can get your website ranked in the top three for a keyword like “Spas in Boston,” it’s much easier to justify paying that money to you instead.

Offline advertisers are often willing to pay $100 to $500 for an ad placement on a well-ranked local portal website. If you get 5-10 such placements, that’s very good money; especially for a low-competition, moderately trafficked website.

=> Choosing a Portal to Start With

To start with, choose a portal in a city that isn’t too competitive. New York for example, will be far too competitive. Daly City in California will be much less competitive.

The trick is to get your feet wet in an industry that has enough businesses to sell to to make it worth the effort. Market to these businesses via email and direct phone calls. It does take effort – that’s why more people don’t do it. This is also why entrepreneurs willing to put in the effort will profit.

Starting a local portal website can be an incredibly powerful and profitable way to make money online. Instead of competing with thousands of other internet marketers in competitive niches, you’re competing with smaller local businesses for SEO placements.

The only difficult part is selling the advertising. Once you master that skill, you’ll be able to get payments for your traffic that vastly exceed what you’d get from other monetization methods (e.g. AdSense.) Start with an easy city with less competition to get your feet wet, and work your way up from there.

Some of the most successful news sites or blog sites are highly targeted websites, aiming for a specific type of person. Specific sites are more likely to attract search engine traffic, more likely to get passed along within a community and also attract higher-paying advertisers than more generic websites.

Here’s how to start a targeted news or blog site.

=> Select a Specific Topic or Area of Interest

The more specific you can get, the better.

Instead of “online business” which is a hugely crowded market, a much more specific website would be a blog about “raising venture capital for an online business.”

You can also target specific locations. For example, “San Francisco Restaurant Blog” has a very good chance of making its way around the SF foodie network.

=> Stay on Top of Current Events in Your Field

It’s crucial if you’re blogging about a specific interest that you stay on top of the industry. There are a few ways to do this.

The first is to subscribe to RSS feeds from various blogs in your industry. Whenever a piece of news hits one of these blogs, you should be the first to know.

You can also use a news and website aggregator like YourVersion to stay on top of non-blog websites.

=> Write with Personality and Insight

Let your personality out and let your thoughts be known. In many markets, what’s being talked about has been beaten to death so many times that people choose blogs based more on the personality than the news they carry.

Of course, you still have to provide Grade A content. This often comes in the form of your own personal insights rather than just facts.

One great example is the Rich Jerk website. The Rich Jerk isn’t teaching anything that the internet marketing community doesn’t know. In fact, it’s very basic information. But his personality is so interesting and so insulting that people can’t help but read the entire website – and by that time feel like they have to buy.

=> Apply Proven Marketing Techniques

Make your website search engine friendly. Start building an email list. Find other people in your industry that you can partner with.

Add Google AdSense to start monetizing your site to start with; but don’t underestimate what others would be willing to pay for an ad placement on a prominent site in a specific industry.

For example, if you own a health website, you might be getting $5 CPM from Google. But an advertiser who sees your site as good branding to be associated with might be willing to pay as much as $15 CPM – sometimes more.

Starting a targeted news or blog site is a great way to build a solid reputation in an industry. You can make more money than a broader website, with less work to boot.