Did you know that you, yes you are at risk for being sued if your website doesn’t comply with ADA standards? Recently, Domino’s Pizza was hit with a lawsuit from a blind man who alleged that the company’s website and mobile app were not accessible to people with disabilities. To be more specific, the man was alleging that the text to speech software he uses was not able to communicate information from the site back to him. In short, Domino’s appealed the case but lost the appeal and the Supreme Court is allowing the case to move forward.

Now more than ever, having an accessible site is important- not just so you can alleviate your chances of a lawsuit, but also so you don’t miss out on any customers who have a disability. Now if you are already performing basic SEO tasks on your website, you won’t have too much to worry about but if not you may want to jump on it ASAP. In fact, we actually offer ADA compliant SEO services in Raleigh NC and surrounding areas! If a full-fledged SEO plan is not in the cards for you at the moment, check out some SEO tactics you can do that will help with ADA compliance below.

Image Optimization for Websites

When you optimize images for websites it tells the search engines what the image is of so that your image will yield in result pages. Image optimization is done by including alt tags on the images when uploading them into your content management system. This may seem like SEO 101 but what a lot of marketers don’t realize is that text to speech software for those with visual impairments actually reference the alt-text in their translation to tell the user what the image is of.

Video Optimization for Websites

It’s no secret that video has continually been making huge leaps in favorability for users and marketers alike. Because of this, more and more websites are hosting video content right on the page. For multimedia to be ADA approved, a readable transcript for audio-only media and video-only media is required. You need to provide an accurate text transcript for those translation services but an awesome transcript also provides search engines with keyword-rich, descriptive text. You’ll also need to give your video a title, description, and keywords.

How to Make PDFs Accessible

Now chances are you have PDFs all across your website for a variety of different reasons. Did you know that these also can, and should be ADA compliant? Well, the folks over at Adobe have actually put together a guide that will help you verify PDF accessibility. Since they are the PDF experts, I recommend booking marking their page for all of your future PDF optimization needs.

The Importance of Header Tags

Anyone who is savvy in SEO knows the importance of header tags to a search engine, but they are just as important for assistive technologies that help users navigate the page. Chances are you already have headings for everything on your site, but if not, this should be one of the first things you do!

Anchor Text and Hyperlinks

How many articles do you read in a day that say click HERE for more details? Did you know that these websites are actually doing hyperlinking all wrong? Hyperlinks on your site should be descriptive. Text or buttons that simply say “Click Here” are not ideal, as it does not communicate to the user what the result would be. We recommend that using a copy of the link to tell users and search engines what you are linking to so that their assistive technologies can pick it up.

Colors, Contrast, and Size

The last ADA compliant tips stem more to how your content looks than how it reads. When it comes to text on a page, you need to make sure you use colors and sizes that are easy to read and do not cause a harsh visual contrast for the reader. Another big “no-no” we see on a lot of sites is the use of an image to substitute text on a page. It is best to steer clear of this as assistive technologies and search engines alike cannot translate the text on the image to the user.

Let’s Get Accessible

So now that you have these tips to make your website more accessible, the time is now to become accessible! Take these tips, log in to your backend and get the ADA Compliance party started! If you would rather have the experts handle this for you contact Red Shark Digital for all of your SEO services in Raleigh NC!

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