In order for a business to flourish in a digitally focused world, your online presence needs to be accessible to everyone.
Digital discrimination is, unfortunately, a real and all-too-common occurrence nowadays, and many businesses do not even know that they are doing it.
If you generate online content of any kind, customers need to be able to engage with it if you aim to generate leads.
This can be difficult if there are no measures in place to support those who live with a disability.
Is your company digitally accessible? If you felt like you could be doing more in this area, here are some top points to watch out for.
Video Support
If you utilize video in any way, perhaps for conducting remote interviews, meetings, or in the creation of social media content, there are some neat ways in which you can boost your accessibility while supporting your brand’s reach at the same time.
One of the best ways to do this is to integrate some difficult audio closed captioning software into your everyday operations.
This can enable you to add an extra layer of interactivity to your videos, even in real-time, while allowing your video’s audio to be searchable online, thus bolstering your SEO efforts.
Superb services like this help everyone, your customers, your employees, and not just those with disabilities either.
There are countless situations where audio might not be beneficial, so taking care to make your visual content accessible in these moments could be the difference between a sale and a loss of a customer.
A Useable Website
Websites are becoming increasingly important for businesses in the modern age. They are so much more than just the digital storefront that houses your wares; they are the medium through which so many people can discover your brand.
It would make sense than to want to construct a highly useable, intuitive, and accessible website.
An accessible website possesses a few key features such as:
- An easy-to-use sitemap
- Alt text
- It needs to work without the use of a mouse
- Optimized for voice search
- Clear use of color
- Readable language
- A succinct layout
- Captioned visual content
- An accessibility policy
- Mobile compatible
This is a good list to be getting on with, but there are plenty of other factors to consider when building a website, and in fact, many sites that commit to making their online presence more accessible are a joy to use in general.
Accessible Services
If you offer services of any description, it is worth making sure that they are as accessible as possible; otherwise, you might find yourself in the midst of a lawsuit.
This looks terrible for your reputation, and it can take its toll on your finances too. Say you offered services that relied on automation to complete the user’s tasks; while the said service may be intuitive for those without disabilities, measures might need to be put in place to cater for those who cannot benefit from various senses.
A more digitally accessible company is often a more enticing and pleasant organization to work for, so don’t underestimate its value.
