Every Digital Marketer Needs To Know About Web Accessibility

Most digital marketers know what their top priorities are, which usually are customer engagement, better conversion rates, larger social media presence and higher search rankings. Many tend to forget about web accessibility. Web accessibility is a critical issue for users, especially for people with disabilities. Consider these statistics from the American Marketing Association article:

• According to government census data from 2010, 56.7 million people in the U.S., or 19% of the population had a disability. 
• The 2016 Click-Away Pound survey found that 71% of online shoppers with limitations will abandon a site if they find it hard to use
  • Same survey revealed that 82% of these customers would spend more money if the sites were more accessible. 

These are just some of the reasons to prioritize accessibility and along that legal penalties can occur if your site is not accessible. There’s also a risk of negative publicity if customers experience sites or apps that are inaccessible. Some important things to know when it comes to web accessibility:

1. Accessibility can’t be treated as an afterthought – Once a user realizes they can’t access content then they will leave your site and never return. If you fix the problem the damage has already been done and that user will not be returning.
2. Accessibility needs to be built into written content – providing alternate methods of content consumption and improving user interface. 
3. Better accessibility means better SEO – Specific and meaningful URLs boost SEO and also aid users to know what page they’re on. The more accessible your site is the better your SEO will be.

To learn more about other web accessibility tips click here to read the list.

There are plenty of benefits to having an accessible site than can definitely help your business. With more users accessing your site you will see improvements with performance, conversion rates, increase in search ranking and enhancing social shares. Accessibility is key and lack of accessibility is a growing problem. As marketers we want to get our content in front of as many people as possible and the team at Bold Media is here to help you achieve an accessible site.