Marketers devise and implement a variety of strategies to expand their company’s reach. However, one critical factor that many marketers overlook is web accessibility. As a result of this neglect, their business is closed to the vast majority of potential customers.
What exactly is web accessibility?
Web accessibility ensures that the internet is available, usable, and beneficial to all users. It takes into account all potential disabilities to ensure that marketing messages are delivered to all types of audiences and that the website provides the most value.
As important as it may appear right now, web accessibility is frequently the last thing marketers consider when developing a website. It is also frequently swept under the rug.
Despite the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) development of dedicated web content accessibility guidelines to make the internet more accessible, digital inclusivity remains a rarity.
And, unfortunately, this unfortunate reality serves not only as an accessibility barrier but also as a growth barrier.
The value of web accessibility in modern marketing initiatives
Recognizing and implementing web accessibility improves the customer experience, opens new doors for your business, improves marketing outcomes, and increases revenue in more ways than one.
1. Extends your market reach
15% of the world’s population is disabled, constituting a highly valuable market segment with significant purchasing power.
With a digitally inclusive web presence, your company interacts with a larger number of people that it would have missed otherwise. In this way, web accessibility introduces a whole new community of prospects with whom you can interact, win as customers, and increase your revenue.
2. SEO benefits
Search engines prefer to rank websites that are safe, easy to use, and useful to all types of users. Furthermore, they regard digitally inclusive websites as credible sources of information and favor them in rankings.
As a result, improving web accessibility unquestionably supplements your online marketing with an SEO boost, assisting you in achieving the coveted top position in SERPs. It creates a new web traffic channel that connects you to your target audience.
3. Enhanced user experience
Because it is directly related to conversions, user experience is at the heart of your digital presence. The fundamental principle of UX optimization requires you to research and deliver on what your target audience desires.
It stands to reason that differently-abled audiences would want you to provide them with a website that they can interact with and benefit from.
By improving your website’s accessibility, you improve its usability, which is a key component of the user experience.
If all other aspects of UX are optimized, improved usability wins customer satisfaction and provides the prospect with a final push toward conversion, contributing to your revenue.
4. Positive brand perception
Web accessibility positions your brand as a strong supporter of digital inclusivity and helps to build positive brand perception. Isn’t that a critical result of modern marketing?
A concrete stance on digital inclusivity reflects your values of empathy, compassion, and equal opportunities for all in today’s world, where people seek a business’s values before engaging with it. This helps to build your community of like-minded people, who will then contribute to your revenue.
Five-point checklist to get started with web accessibility
For maximum impact, consider web accessibility a priority rather than an afterthought, and incorporate it into your digital and marketing strategy.
Here are a few ideas for increasing your digital inclusivity and making a bigger impact:
1. Multilingual SEO
Web accessibility aims to remove barriers to access for people with permanent, temporary, or situational disabilities. It also eliminates linguistic barriers, allowing people of all cultural and ethnic backgrounds equal access.
Given that English is only spoken by 4.83 percent of the world’s population, multilingual SEO breaks down linguistic barriers and allows searchers of all linguistic backgrounds to benefit from the internet.
To get you started, here’s a guide I wrote on multilingual SEO.
2. Voice search
The introduction of intelligent assistants such as Alexa has ushered in a new era of voice search ubiquity and, as a result, web accessibility.
Voice search is an excellent avenue to pursue for businesses looking to be more digitally inclusive, as it increases the chances of interaction with people who cannot search the traditional way.
The following are some best practices for optimizing voice search SEO:
- Use long tail keywords that are specific, descriptive, and natural in the language of your users. Serve up content that provides direct answers.
- Improve your ‘Google My Business’ profile.
- Create FAQ pages for voice searches.
- Implement schema, which is a piece of code that can be added to your website to improve search visibility.
Check out this voice search SEO guide for more information on trends and best practices.
3. Alternate (Alt) text
Alternate text assists visually impaired visitors in understanding what a web image depicts. As a result, image optimization allows web visitors to absorb the information your website provides in its entirety, which leads to an improved user experience.
Useful hints for using alt text:
- Keep it descriptive and keyword-specific; this will show up if your page loads slowly or if an audio description is required.
- Make good use of structured data on ecommerce sites to provide the search engine with more specific details about your products’ color, type, size, and so on.
If you need more information, check out this evergreen image optimization guide.
4. Hierarchical organization or content using H tags
A hierarchical layout organizes your web content into a readable structure. A hierarchical organization, which is an important part of web accessibility (and SEO), can make your website usable and understandable for users with certain cognitive disabilities and people with short attention spans, increasing their satisfaction and the overall UX of your website.
Check out this guide to meta tag optimization.
5. Color contrast
Color contrast refers to the process of adjusting the color of foreground web elements (for example, fonts) against the color of background elements in order to ensure that the foreground elements, which have value, stand out and are easily readable for people with visual impairment.
The Bureau of Internet Accessibility has determined a color contrast ratio that ensures your website is visible and readable for people who have color-related visual impairments.
Conclusion
Web accessibility is essential, but it does not receive the same attention as other digital marketing avenues that promise increased reach, better perception, and higher revenue.
This reality can work in your favor if you take advantage of the lack of web accessibility and gain a competitive advantage by embracing digital inclusivity.
The development of positive brand perception in an era of value-driven shoppers is one of the most significant marketing benefits of web accessibility.
Marketing initiatives that are inclusive are admirable. However, they are only valuable if they are accompanied by deliberate efforts to improve your company’s digital accessibility. As a result, attempting to implement web accessibility strategies can assist you in becoming a pioneer of an internet era where digital inclusivity is a priority.
Learn more from Marketing and read What is Content Marketing?
