The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) helps prohibit discrimination against people with disabilities. This includes multiple areas like employment, accommodation, transportation and a host of other services and programs. When it comes to employment norms, ADA compliance helps protect employees and potential job seekers with disabilities.

ADA compliance also applies to digital platforms like websites and apps. The idea behind creating online platforms like websites and apps that are ADA compliant is to ensure people with disabilities like hearing, vision or other limitations are just as able to access these online mediums as non-disabled users.

At a time when sensitive issues are taking the forefront and the need to be more conscious when it comes to the economic, environmental and societal impacts of a company’s presence, product and service, it is crucial for marketers to look into these aspects deeply.

For marketers: the benefits of having an ADA compliant website are plenty, from boosting the end-to-end customer experience and journey to driving impact in the market, an ADA compliant website can help brands stand out and also add value to the segment and economy they belong to.

Let’s explore some of the top benefits of an ADA compliant website:

ADA Compliance Measures Allows More Number of Users to Interact with your Website and Apps

According to recent research, 26 percent (that’s about one in 4!) adults within the United States have some form of disability. That’s a significant percentage of potential users/audiences. Making web pages and apps easier to understand for everyone irrespective of them having a disability or not, by adhering to ADA compliance measures allows brands to tap into markets or audiences they may not have considered a priority before.

Marketing Technology News: ID.me Names David Kensick Chief Experience Officer

ADA Compliance Helps Build Better End to End Customer Journeys

An ADA compliant app or website can build a better online experience while also boosting conversions, ADA compliance in many ways allows users to find what they are looking for quickly because the features of ADA boost how easily users can search or track what they need at a given moment.

ADA Compliance Boosts Market Reputation

Several studies point to how customers today want more integrated, seamless interactions with the brands they deal with. Going a step forward, many studies suggest that customers now want the brands they interact with to be more socially conscious.

When trying to build a ‘’differentiated’’ user experience, marketers need to respect these newer customer trends and preferences. ADA compliance can help add to this goal by delivering online experiences that are suited to a wider range of people. Moreover, brands that actively focus on building and implementing ADA compliance into their processes and apps or websites can benefit from a better position in the market vis a vis competitors and other market players.

Marketing Technology News: MarTech Interview With Dave Charest, Director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact

ADA Compliance Allows Marketers to Diversify the Type of Content They Present Online

ADA compliance norms were put in place to enable better access to everyday products, services and facilities to persons with disabilities. Through these measures, integrating interactive elements like voice commands, video transcripts, etc to boost how online content is broadcasted or presented not only benefits the people it was meant for but also users who prefer other channels of content to text.

ADA Compliance Can Boost SEO Efforts

Search engines today are constantly evolving with most of them now crawling pages that are preferred by users and those that boast of more human elements. When websites especially meet ADA compliance norms, basic elements like implementation of audio/video and transcripts impacts future meta tagging and similar SEO efforts, thereby helping brands to slowly boost not just reach by SEO goals in the short to long term.

ADA compliance doesn’t only add to better end user usability or market reputation. In the long run, when brands prove that they are socially conscious and sensitive to non-commerce goals like the impact they have on society, the economy, environment and others, it creates a different standard in the market.

If every brand implements processes and updates to cater to these newer customer preferences, it doesn’t only benefit marketing outcomes but also helps build a more inclusive online community.

Marketing Technology News: Marketers’ Next Moves as the “User Experience” Dies Down