According to the CDC, 26% of American adults are living with some type of challenge including visual impairment, hearing loss, motor skills problems, epilepsy, or cognitive disorders.
This has HUGE implications for your website, from both a fairness and effectiveness perspective.
Recently, my team and I were introduced to accessiBe, the easiest and best way to make your website available to all. I’m ashamed to tell you that for many years, ConvinceAndConvert.com wasn’t fully compatible with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and wasn’t accessible to everyone.
I’m sorry for that, especially since I now know how fast it would have been to rectify.
Within 48 hours of signing up with accessiBe, we turned ConvinceAndConvert.com into a fully-compliant site that is available to everyone. Didn’t cost much at all, didn’t slow the site down, and didn’t impact SEO. And our site is bigger than most (several thousand pages).
Our site now includes screen-reader optimization for blind users, keyboard navigation optimization for the motor impaired, on-page, live dictionary/glossary for people with cognitive disorders and a lot more.
INCREDIBLE.
Is your website accessible?
Here’s how to find out:
1. Run a fast, no-cost accessibility audit on your website (takes just a moment).
2. Enter your website URL and find out if you are ADA-compliant right now (probably not).
Here are 5 reasons why accessiBe is a no-brainer for website accessibility, and you should check it out today.
1. You’ll increase conversions by making your website easier to use.
26% of American adults are living with a disability now. They deserve equal access to your website.
From a business perspective, it makes sense. People living with disabilities have money in their pockets, just like anyone else, so the easier it is for them to access your website, the easier it will be to get them to convert and become a customer.
What does accessiBe look like for users? Here are a couple views.
And here is what it look like on a Hilton Hotels website.
2. Making your website accessible with accessiBe will help you win lawsuits.
It will help prevent lawsuits too, because suing a company with an accessible website about ADA compliance isn’t worth the effort.
If your website is not ADA compliant, your company can get sued or receive a demand letter from a law firm specializing in ADA compliance seeking a settlement on behalf of a disabled person. Will it completely prevent lawsuits? No. In the United States, you can sue anyone for anything. But you’ll be MUCH less likely to get sued if your website is compliant.
For any customers who are subject to lawsuits, accessiBe will go through a litigation support process with you. They’ll do an audit and prove exactly how your website is compliant. They’ll provide you with a form letter to send back to any law firms that have approached you, as well as your purchase invoice (just so you have it handy), in addition to your statement of accessibility.
As of now, accessiBe has never had a customer who has been sued after installing accessiBe exclusively. But, in the US, anything is possible. It’s reassuring to know that accessiBe will support you if that were to happen.
3. Setting up accessiBe is truly painless.
We’ve all been through martech implementations that are supposed to be easy but drag out for months. Not the case with accessiBe. Not even close.
All you need to do is add one line of JavaScript code to your website. You can send it to your developer and be up and running with accessiBe in less than 48 hours (we were up and running in that amount of time at Convince & Convert). It’s extremely straight forward. I wish all implementations were that simple.
You also have the option to customize the branding and colors for your website. That will take a tiny bit more effort (hand that part of to your agency or creative team).
4. accessiBe is the easiest way to make your website accessible
In point 3, I talked about how painless the set up is. Phew.
The same is true for the actual product. Making your website accessible with accessiBe is truly effortless. accessiBe is the only fully automatic website accessibility solution that is powered by AI.
You add 1 line of script to your website, and the accessibility interface instantly appears on your website
Using the contextual understanding and image recognition, acessiBe’s AI scans and analyzes websites to learn what elements and functionality they include, and adjusts them to blind users’ screen-readers.
And every 24 hours, the AI scans for new and revised content to fix. INCREDIBLE.
Here at Convince & Convert, Kelly Santina, our director of operations, is the accessiBe administrator. Kelly is super busy (probably the busiest person on our team), but it made sense for her to admin accessiBe because it requires 0 effort. Truly. Or she is just that amazing (it’s both, really).
5. You’ll spread positive word of mouth.
In my book, Talk Triggers, I discuss how critical it is that EVERYONE has a positive experience with your company. That will ultimately help fuel word of mouth.
Now let’s go back to that 26% statistic. If 26% of your audience can’t access your website in an easy and positive way, what will those people say about your company?
And let’s face it: making your website accessible the right thing to do.
Not only is having an ADA compliant website important from a legal standpoint, but it’s also important from a moral standpoint.
Next Steps for Making Your Website Accessible
- If you haven’t already, find out if you website is ADA & WCAG compliant with accessiBe’s ACE checker–it’s easy and free.
- Watch this fast and fun video demonstration of accessiBe, The Easiest Way to Make Your Website Accessible to All with accessiBe now.
- Sign up for a free trial of accessiBe.
Installing accessiBe is the easiest and most important way for you to improve your website in 2021. Heck, if you contact them now, you’ll have it up and running in 2020.
accessiBe is a Convince & Convert partner and client. However, we would still use and recommend the solution even if they weren’t.
