The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was developed in 1990 and is meant to ensure that people with disabilities have the same opportunities as anyone else. This means any businesses that serve the public must make sure their building accommodates people with disabilities of various kinds. This also now applies to websites and even mobile apps. Basically, this means that your website needs to be accessible to people who have disabilities that affect their hearing, vision, or physical and mental capacities.
If you’re not sure if your website is ADA compliant and you’re wondering if it’s worth looking into, email me and I’ll provide you with a free ADA Audit of your website in less than 24 hours!
Reasons to be ADA Compliant
The Law
So if you want to avoid the legal costs of being found non-compliant with the ADA in the future, it’s best to make the necessary changes to your website now before the safe harbor clause that allows your existing content to remain as it is disappears.
Your Reputation
The fact that an ADA compliant website can increase your target audience by millions is just one reason to make your site more accessible. Another benefit is that not only will you get more customers, but those customers will also know how valuable they are to your business. After all, they might have gone to a few other websites that were not ADA compliant, disappointed each time that they couldn’t access the content until they got to your website.
Increase Your Target Audience
If your website is not already ADA compliant, you are automatically missing out on millions of potential customers who cannot access your site due to their disabilities. In fact, there are nearly 50 million people with disabilities in the U.S., which means about 19 percent of this country has a disability. Many of them might be interested in your products or services, but once they arrive at your website, they won’t be able to navigate easily enough to buy anything or even contact you, all because your website is only accessible to people without disabilities. Thus, they may move on to your competitors.
Improves Your SEO Efforts
Now more than ever, search engines are evolving to crawl pages with more human intention. A key element of WCAG is accessibility to screen readers, and these readers crawl your website pages similarly to search engines. If your website meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, it will likely appeal to users, search engines, and screen readers alike, ultimately improving your SEO endeavors.
Again! If you’re not sure if your website is ADA compliant and you’re wondering if it’s worth looking into, email me and I’ll provide you with a free ADA Audit of your website in less than 24 hours!