In today’s hyper-connected, digital world, Website Accessibility is critical for all of us. This is to say that individuals with disabilities should be able to access and navigate websites with the same efficiency and comfort as everyone else. According to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), over 1 billion people worldwide have some form of disability. This also represents a massive market of potential website customers that are being shut out because their needs are not being met.
It turns out there are all kinds of benefits to making a website accessible. Everyone deserves to have an equal opportunity to see and learn about what they need to know. Improving your site’s accessibility keeps people with disabilities informed and able to contribute creatively. This improves your website’s search engine ranking. Google and other search engines promote websites that everyone can access. Making a website accessible is a great way to enhance and enrich your website’s user experience. When visitors find it simple to travel through your site and locate the information they need, it boosts their engagement and increases the likelihood of them converting into customers.
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Why is Website Accessibility Important?
Here are just a few reasons why website accessibility is important:
- Legal Compliance: In many countries, there are laws that require websites to be accessible to people with disabilities. These laws are punishingly technical, and it can frequently be challenging or impossible for businesses to meet the technical compliance standard.
- Improved User Experience: When a website is inclusive, it becomes better for everyone. This, in turn, can result in greater user satisfaction and engagement.
- Increased Website Traffic: Accessible websites are more likely to be found by search engines. This, in turn, helps businesses generate more web traffic as well as more leads and sales.
- Enhanced Brand Reputation: Besides reinforcing an organization’s commitment to accessibility, this can go a long way in improving a company’s brand reputation. This can be crucially important for businesses that rely on visibility to be noticed.
How to Achieve Website Accessibility?
There are several practical steps companies can take to ensure their websites are more accessible. A few things to keep in mind:
- Conduct a Website Accessibility Audit: The first step to achieving website accessibility is to conduct an audit of your website. This will enable you to pinpoint important spots where your website fails to meet accessibility standards.
- Develop an Accessibility Policy: Once you have identified any accessibility issues, you should develop an accessibility policy. Your policy should detail your intentions to ensure your site is accessible and define measurable goals and target dates.
- Train Your Staff: It is important to train your staff on website accessibility. This will go a long way to make sure that they’re just generally aware of the need for accessibility and understand how to produce accessible content.
- Use Accessible Web Design Practices: Many web design practices can help to make a website more accessible. These practices include writing in plain language, offering alternative text for images, and utilizing proper heading hierarchy.
- Test Your Website with Assistive Technology: After you’ve made accessibility changes, the best way to know that your site is truly accessible is to test it out with assistive technology. This will better enable you to spot any outstanding accessibility barriers.
VA Talks and Accessibility of Websites
VA Talks is working to ensure that its website is accessible to all. We have a collective mission to open up all of this data in ways that present it in more accessible formats to everyone. We’re always striving to make our website more accessible, and we hope other companies are too.
Closing Thoughts
Web accessibility is a big deal, and it’s something that cannot be ignored. By following the steps in this blog post, businesses of any size can make sure their websites are easy to use for people with disabilities and everyone else. This often results in a better user experience, higher website traffic, and brand reputation. In addition to the tips mentioned in this blog post, VA Talks can also help businesses achieve website accessibility. We have a suite of services that can assist private sector businesses in finding and fixing accessibility problems. These services focus on improving your web accessibility through website audits, website accessibility training, and website accessibility consulting.
If you are interested in learning more about how VA Talks can help your business achieve website accessibility, please contact us today.
