When starting a blog, don't forget about your prospective readers who are blind or visually impaired. It's a potential readership that will only serve to heighten your blog's popularity and widen its influence. After all, those with vision loss are a rapidly growing demographic on the Internet.

To make sure your blog is accessible to the blind and visually impaired as well as the sighted community, keep the following eight steps in mind:

1. Make sure your Internet service is accessible to people with disabilities.

Choose one that doesn't throw up obstacles to blind bloggers such as those requiring readers to input characters seen in a picture to gain entry. While there is an alternative that is accessible to those with vision loss, it requires them to venture into the "advanced setup" territory, which requires the user to have more technical knowledge.

2. Attach descriptions to your images.

Make sure they are brief but free of abbreviations, informative, and along the lines of the blog's style. If the image contains text, include it. Put the most important information at the front, and ensure that everything is spelled correctly.

3. Provide short explanations of links in link tag.

Blog visitors using a screen reader to comprehend a website usually tab from link to link to get an idea of all its choices. However, hearing "click here" over and over again can drive a blind or visually impaired reader crazy.

Attach descriptions for links to give readers an overall picture instead and to improve the chances that your blog is picked up by search engines.

4. Make sure the comment form is labeled correctly.

Using a screen reader with incorrectly labeled forms can be maddening for the blind.

6. Use relative font sizes.

Most blogs are driven by stylesheets that allow for options of particular appeal to low-vision readers. Be sure to use flexible or relative font sizes expressed in percentages rather than absolute font sizes to enable the user to change text size.

7. Don't let links automatically open up new windows.

Visually impaired readers can become disoriented by too many opened windows, and only the newest screen readers have features that alert users when this occurs. So, when in doubt, stay away from putting in your links.

8. Place the blogroll on the right-hand side.

Since screen readers start at the top and travel from left to right, top and left-hand navigation bars can be irritating to blind and visually impaired readers because every time they visit the site, the same links are read over and over again. Putting the blogroll at the right allows the reader to jump straight into the new content not waste time listening to the old links over and over again.

If left-hand navigation is something you cannot live without, be sure to place a "skip link" option with an anchor tag that allows blind users to go straight to the new blog.

In just eight steps, you can open your blog up to whole new universe of readers, making what was inaccessible accessible without a lot of effort.