Building an Inclusive Website: Why It’s Important

According to the CDC, one in four adults in the U.S. have some type of disability. You may not have realized it, but a lot of people out there need the web to become a better place.  

By choosing an inclusive website design in West Palm Beach, you can make the internet a better place for humanity!

Plus, choosing an inclusive design is good for your business! Here’s what you need to know.

Accessibility and Usability Is Good for Business

Did you know that 20% of people rely on an accessible and inclusive web? That’s 1,580,000,000 individuals! As a business owner, you don’t want to pass on the opportunity to make more sales just because your website is not assistive technology-friendly.  

Here are some other reasons why you should start using an inclusive website design in West Palm Beach.

1. An Accessible Website Is a User-friendly Website

Everyone loves a website that’s easy to use. It creates a positive user experience and encourages visitors to stay on your site longer.  

This helps it generate more traffic to your site, improve your SEO, and attract new customers.  

But, how can you make sure that your website is user-friendly? Here are some characteristics to check for when looking at your site:

• Users can quickly understand what your site is about.  
• They can find the information they want to get right away.
• Users know how to navigate your site instinctively. They don't need to pause and think about how to get from one page to another.  

• They can easily do the same tasks again the next time they visit your site.  
• They don’t make any errors while navigating your site.  
• Users love the look and feel of your site.  
• Your website is compatible with all mobile devices.  

These characteristics are essential, since a bad website can turn users away.

In fact, according to a survey conducted by SOASTA, Americans tend to associate negative feelings, such as annoyance (75%), frustration (69%), and distrust (19%), with brands or companies with poor-performing sites.  

2. An Accessible Website Is an SEO-friendly Website

Search engine bots are blind. They rely on several algorithms and rules to determine which sites to crawl, how many pages on a site should be indexed, and how many times a page should be re-crawled.  

By optimizing your website for SEO, you allow these bots to understand what your pages are about and index them for relevant queries.  

A part of optimizing your site for SEO involves following best practices that make your website more accessible to users with disabilities.  

Here’s how optimizing the following for SEO can make your site more inclusive:

• Semantic HTML – Using semantically correct HTML helps search engines and screen readers determine the relevance and context of your page’s content to specific queries.  
• Page titles and other meta tags – Optimizing your page title and meta tags helps screen readers understand what your page is about.  
• Headings – Headings communicate the structure of a page’s content. It organizes the text on a page into smaller sections so it’s easy for crawlers, assistive technologies, and human users to navigate and understand a site.  
• Image Alt Text – Search engine bots can't see images. By describing what an image is displaying, you can inform both crawlers and those with visual disabilities what your pictures are all about. As a result, the bots can index the images on your site correctly, and users can better understand what the images depict.  

• Descriptive Link Anchor Text – Anchor text refers to the clickable text on content that redirects users to other resources. It's important to anchor your links to text that make sense. Doing this gives search engines and users a clue about the content of the linked page. For example, if your link text is "summer essentials", then the screen reader will say "link summer essential" and the user will know that the page being linked to is all about supper essentials. If you use a vague link text like "click here", users will have no clue what the linked site is all about.  
• Video and Audio Transcripts – Transcripts and captions allow the content of your video or audio to be searchable. Some screen readers also prefer “reading” the transcript over listening to the audio of your content. Adding transcripts is also a proven strategy to boost your SEO, increase your search rank, views, and engagement.  

Using an accessible web design makes your site more SEO-friendly, which means better rankings and more traffic for your business!

3. An Accessible Website Is a Law-Abiding Site

Yes, you read that right. Creating an accessible website and other digital products is required by law. In the U.S., web accessibility is governed by several state and federal laws, including The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).  

Making your website and mobile apps more inclusive also prevents you from getting sued, or penalized. This is important for your business's reputation! In 2019, roughly 11,000 ADA-based web accessibility lawsuits were filed in federal courts.  

To motivate small businesses to comply, the IRS is giving small businesses up to $5,000 grant in tax credit for accessible websites.

Following the WCAG (Website Content Accessibility Guidelines) can help you build a more accessible website. These guidelines are based on the following four principles:

• Perceivable: Users should be able to identify and understand everything that appears on your site, from video to texts to images.  
• Robust: The content of your site must be clear and powerful enough to provide the same experience to all users, even if it’s delivered differently by screen readers.  

• Operable: Users should be able to navigate your site and interact with all its features without any problem.
• Understandable: Equip all users with the means to understand your website’s content (e.g., providing instruction for using site features like a calculator or how to fill out a contact form).  

4. Broaden Your Reach

In the process of making your website more inclusive, you’ll be able to discover and improve usability problems that were affecting all site users.  

An accessible website design in West Palm Beach enables you to solve age and disability-related web accessibility needs. This makes your website more efficient to use for everyone.  

The more accessible your website is, the more it can cater to all interested visitors.

Is Your Website Inclusive and Accessible to All?

Using an inclusive website design in West Palm Beach will make your website highly usable to all kinds of users, and as a result, broaden your reach, prevent any lawsuits, boost your SEO, and improve the overall user experience!  

If you feel like your website isn’t accessible to our brothers and sisters with disabilities, Digital Resource can help.  

Our team of SEO specialists and award-winning web designers will work on improving your website by optimizing it for SEO and using an accessible web design.  

Contact us today to ensure that your website has better online visibility and can cater to every potential customer out there!

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