Is anyone else looking into ARIA Roles vs HTML5 Markup and Schema.org

[AU-SEO]

Hi im investigating the pros/cons of the Aria Roles, HTML5 Semantic Markup and Schema.org.

For those not in the loop:

• HTML5 Semantic Markup = Semantic Structure Layout. (i.e. Header, Footer, aside (sidebar) Nav)
• Aria Roles (WAL-Aria)- Defined for Screen Readers
• Schema.org - Microdata

I went gung-ho with some dev costs accounted for to push the new marekup schema. My devs being really good pushed back and in doing further research I have found that there is indeed some underlying complexities surrounding how we structure and markup these pages. A lot of the HTML5 Semantic Stucture code seems to lack adequate purpose, like it was recommended in 2004 (oh wait it was). Schema.org makes sense  in the larger realm given in SEO land we love the search engines, although Schema.org vs. Facebook Open Graph. The ARIA attributes look great and work for screen readers (so I am supportive of pursuing) but do they offer and SEO benefit.

I would love to get the communities thoughts in general and or thoughts on ignoring HTML5 Semantic markup and just putting in Schema.org tags.

Is anyone else going through the same issues?

Regards,

Phil

[DarioStereo]

Shhhhh!!!

I'm adding ARIA markup to the site I work on. It was easy to get stakeholder buy-in, as it makes for a good story either way. At minimum, you'll have a website that is more accessible to disabled users.

I know this post is from last year, but semantic HTML5 and schema.org in my mind are givens at this point.