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Fix library · Accessibility

Telling browsers which language the page is in

This is a single attribute on a single line, and it decides whether a screen reader reads your page in an English accent or a French one. Get it wrong and the text becomes very hard to follow; leave it out and the software guesses.

Accessibility Low at worst 1 finding covered

Low

No page language declared

What SEOPert detected

The page does not declare a language on its html element.

What this means

Declaring the page language helps screen readers pronounce text correctly and helps search engines serve the right audience.

How to fix it

  1. Set your site language in your website settings (e.g. English).
On WordPress
  1. Go to Settings → General → Site Language and choose your language.

If you are handing this to a developer

Set the lang attribute on <html>, e.g. <html lang="en">.

Check it worked. View the page source: the first line after <!doctype html> should read <html lang="en"> (or your language).

Declare a page language correctly A 30-second exercise. One line is the problem — see whether you would catch it.

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