Is Your Brand Accessible to People with Disabilities?

Making your website accessible ensures everyone can interact with your brand and is critical to providing a good user experience.

Interested in seeing if your website is inclusive?

What is Web Accessibility?

Web accessibility is a broad term that describes transforming websites and web-based applications to ensure they’re accessible to people with disabilities.

In other words, businesses are likely familiar with the accessibility requirements that apply to their physical storefronts. Web accessibility is essentially an extension of those responsibilities across their digital spaces, too.

An accessible website fosters an inclusive digital experience, broadens reach, and drives loyalty — all while aligning with legal requirements. Let’s take a closer look at some of the business benefits related to inclusion:

1. Web accessibility expands your audience and brand reach:

Nearly a fifth of the global population has a disability that impacts their internet use, and this massive market segment accounts for more than $13 trillion in disposable income annually.

With e-commerce now accounting for 20% of all retail sales (and expected to rise), online store owners can’t afford to continue to deprive their bottom line of this market segment.

2. Inclusion can help mitigate legal risks:

In the US, most public-facing businesses must make their websites accessible under accessibility standards like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Businesses that fail to ensure (and demonstrate) accessibility risk facing demand letters and lawsuits.

Let’s take a closer look at web accessibility lawsuits in the US:

Inaccessible websites face serious  legal consequences . Since 2018, legal actions in the US have increased 300% year over year. This trend is estimated to continue as the need to make the internet a more inclusive space becomes more prominent.

2023 saw more than 4,600 cases. 25% of these lawsuits were against companies with previous lawsuits. Legal actions have a widespread effect across all industries and company sizes, with small to medium businesses (SMBs) in the online retail space at the center.

3. Web accessibility improves SEO

Given the significant overlap between best practices around web accessibility and SEO, many businesses see ranking and other growth KPI benefits when they become accessible.

More specifically, one study found that 73% of websites that became accessible saw growth in organic traffic at an average rate of 12%.

4. Appeal to modern, socially-conscious consumers

Today’s consumers heavily consider the ethical stance of the companies they support, making initiatives around Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) a critical business imperative. Here’s how:

  • 77% of consumers are motivated to support socially responsible companies
  • 66% of buyers would pay more to buy from socially and environmentally responsible businesses
  • 88% of individuals would like to know about a company’s CSR efforts
  • 92% of consumers would buy a product that supports a good cause

Web Accessibility Legislation

ADA
In 2018, the US Department of Justice affirmed that websites are places of public accommodation and subject to the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), citing the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) as the recommended standard for businesses to follow.

In other words, the ADA requires businesses to make their websites accessible to people with disabilities.

Navigating specific compliance requirements can be tricky, but the most important thing to remember is that web accessibility benefits everyone.

ADA Tax Credit
The U.S. government promotes and supports accessibility practices that comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by incentivizing the efforts made and sustained with a tax credit (a credit is an amount subtracted from your overall liability after calculating your taxes).

With a credit of up to $5,000 annually, this is a helpful incentive for any business looking to begin their web accessibility journey.

Why Choose ClickMonster?

To help make this efficient and affordable for our clients, we offer a cutting-edge ecosystem of solutions designed to help you make your website accessible to everyone.

Our goal is to simplify and streamline the process of becoming accessible by leveraging AI, machine learning, and computer vision.

By streamlining accessibility, we empower businesses of all sizes to take the inclusive approach and better align their digital storefronts with ADA requirements.

Interested in discovering how our Ecosystem of Solutions can make your website accessible?

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