Is accessibility costing you sales?
What is website accessibility and why should you care? Any business with a website must know about accessibility and why ignoring it could negatively affect potential sales and business growth. Discover more in our latest newsletter below.
If you’ve already brushed up on website accessibility and are concerned about lacking accessibility affecting your business, give us a call or zip us a message soon. Our website experts will be happy to chat about your needs and our relevant services with no obligations on your part.
What is website accessibility?
Website accessibility is ensuring that everyone who wants to visit and use your website can do so without great difficulty. This means developing a website that accommodates people with disabilities and even accommodating as many people as possible without excellent internet speeds. Some websites might need to be accessible to abide by legislation.
For example, an internet user might have a visual impairment that makes using your website difficult. There may be ways to change your website to allow that person to use it easily. Your website should also be developed in a way that it doesn’t demand the very best internet speeds for it to load. Otherwise, you would be restricting its use by people without premium internet connections, possibly those who are lower on the socio-economic scale. A balance needs to be struck.
Website accessibility could also refer to the accessibility of the website across different devices. But that isn’t the focus of our conversation here.
Why is website accessibility important?
Website accessibility is important for both internet users and the business. The person using the internet will benefit from an accessible website because they’ll be able to use your it to access information and make purchases just like anyone else without a disability. Simultaneously, this is important to the business because it allows their website to reach more eyeballs and penetrate more of the available market.
In a nutshell, an accessible website can be more profitable than an inaccessible one!
Benefits to your brand
Choosing to ensure your website is accessible doesn’t just have the potential to improve sales figures and profit totals. It also benefits your business brand and makes people want to use your business over a competitor.
Inclusivity is a major goal in modern branding because businesses want to show everyone is welcome and able to use their products or services. An accessible website positively contributes to the inclusivity aspect of the brand. News can travel fast about your inclusive brand among specific communities and online forums, which can then drive more traffic to your website.
How to achieve website accessibility
Here are some ways to make a website more accessible, but it’s far from exhaustive:
- Use colour with consideration
- Opt for an accessibility-minded CMS
- Make content accessible with just a keyboard
- Use alt text for images
- Make your website available in different languages
Website accessibility audit and services
WEBPRO offers services to help identify where your website accessibility is lacking and then suggest ways to make improvements. If you would like an introductory chat about your website accessibility and possible solutions, why not get in touch now? Our friendly team will be happy to discuss the details over the phone or via email, with no obligations for you to use our services.
Recap: Website accessibility refers to the accessibility of your website and its functions to different populations, including those with disabilities or people with limited access to high-speed internet. Businesses should strive to make their website more accessible to cater to more of the market, drive site visitors and potentially make more sales. It could also be a legislative requirement in some cases. There are ways to make this happen, and WEBPRO is on hand to discuss the specifics.
P.S. We can provide website accessibility audits and services to businesses that didn’t have their site designed by us!
