Web accessibility is becoming an increasingly important topic in our society, and quite rightly so. For a while now, there has been a large focus on the necessity to make physical provisions for people with disabilities to interact and engage with businesses and public organizations. In most cases, this meant installing things such as disability ramps, lifts, toilets, and so on. However, the online world has been heavily overlooked when it comes to accessibility, which has left many people frustrated as they cannot access the products and services they need.
If you run an online business, you may think that making your website accessible is too costly or too time-consuming of a project to undertake (especially if your business is only small). Fortunately, web accessibility overlays offer an innovative solution to this problem that is both effective and affordable. Let’s find out more.
What are accessibility overlays?
Web accessibility overlays are tools of automated software that alter the usability of your website by detecting and fixing accessibility issues, without changing your source code. In most cases, these overlays are simple to install since they only require you to modify a few lines of code with a snippet of JavaScript (which tends to come in the form of a widget or plug-in). Once you have the overlay up and running on your website, they automatically get to work bringing your pages up to speed with the various web accessibility guidelines, such as the WCAG 2.1.
The good news is that the cost of web accessibility overlays pale compared to what it would cost to hire a web developer to manually remediate every single line of code in your website.
Let’s take a look at some key benefits of web accessibility overlays and why you should be using one on your site.
They help you reach a wider audience
A more accessible website will help you reach a much wider audience. That’s because it’s estimated that there are over one billion disabled people in the world, and many of them will not be able to access your content unless you make adequate adjustments. When installing an overlay on your site, you are ensuring that all users, will be able to engage and interact with your site just as anybody else would. Of course, this is excellent for business since the more people you open your doors to, the more likely you will be to make a sale.
They improve the user experience
An accessible website benefits every person that visits your website. Many people make the false assumption that web accessibility overlays only provide things such as keyboard navigation and compatibility with screen readers. While they certainly achieve this, they also vastly improve the overall user experience by simplifying navigation, eliminating contrasting colors, ensuring all written content is legible and easily understandable and offering customizable options to all visitors.
They help you avoid lawsuits
Web accessibility lawsuits are on the rise. According to a report from Accesibilty.com, 2,352 web accessibility lawsuits were raised against US businesses in 2021, which was a 14.35% increase from the previous year. With a number of high-profile cases, such as Robles v. Domino’s Pizza, LLC, bringing media attention to the cause, we will likely continue to see more lawsuits in the coming months and years. If you want to avoid the stress, cost, and negative PR that these lawsuits bring, then a web accessibility overlay is a great way to protect yourself and give you peace of mind.
They create a more inclusive brand
While a lawsuit can bring negative PR, being shown to take a firm stance on accessibility and inclusion can help you to build positive attention. Staking your flag in the ground on issues such as this and taking time to help your disabled customers is a great way to foster a more inclusive brand. This will benefit your brand perception among current and potential customers, and maybe even your employees (if you have them).
They can improve your SEO performance
Believe it or not, web accessibility and SEO go hand-in-hand. After all, the overarching goal of SEO is to ensure that your target audience can effortlessly discover your website and interact with its content. When installing a web accessibility overlay, your SEO performance may experience a boost since user experience is a crucial ranking factor. As a result, having straightforward navigation, legible text, and quick load times can all help you to rank more highly on the SERPs.
In addition to this, web overlays typically restructure content on your website in order to make them compatible with screen readers and keyboard navigation. This usually entails sticking to a clear header structure, which seems to lend itself well to a good SEO score. The inclusion of things such as alt text on images, video transcripts, sitemaps, and more relevant anchor text all help to improve SEO and drive more traffic to your site.
Final word
Web accessibility overlays offer a simple and affordable way to increase the accessibility of your website. These automated tools ensure that your pages are more accessible to disabled people while improving the user experience for all visitors. When you factor in the potential for increased revenue, improved SEO performance, and minimizing the risk of having lawsuits filed against you, it’s safe to say they offer a great solution to website owners that want to prioritize accessibility without breaking the bank.
