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Declaring your page language: the lang="en-AU" attribute

At the very top of your page's code, the <html> tag can carry a language declaration: <html lang="en-AU">. Plenty of older small-business sites have none.

Why it costs you customers

Screen readers use it to pick the right pronunciation voice — without it, assistive software guesses.

Browsers use it to decide when to offer translation; search engines use it as a weak locale hint. None of these is dramatic, but the fix costs one minute.

Check it in 30 seconds

View source; the first line or two should read <html lang="en-AU"> (or at least lang="en").

Our free check reads it automatically.

How to fix it

Hand-built sites

Edit the opening tag: <html lang="en-AU">. Done.

Platforms

Wix/Squarespace/WordPress set a site language in general settings — make sure it is actually set to English (Australia) rather than the default en-US, then the attribute follows.

From our own site checks

This is a good "while the bonnet is open" fix: nobody should pay someone to do only this, but any time you or a developer touch the site header for other reasons, spend the extra minute.

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