How to Make a Website ADA Compliant (An Easy Guide for Bloggers)

Want to learn how to make a website ADA compliant? I just did it for my two blogs so will share how for yours.

Learning how to make a website ADA compliant is easier than you think as long as you have the right resources and guidance on hand.

Before we get into learning how to make your website ADA compliant, let’s learn about what ADA compliance is, who is required to have an ADA compliant website and how you can make your website or blog ADA compliant without too much effort.

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What is ADA compliant?

Have you ever thought what your life may be like without internet technology? In this current era of rapid digitalization, it’s probably extremely hard to imagine. From getting your groceries delivered at your doorstep to online jobs, we all are dependent on internet.

But have you ever imagined the state of those who can’t access internet due to their physical disabilities? 2017 Disability Statistics Annual Report reveals that almost 12.8% of US population have some sought of disability and are unable to access various life-changing websites on internet.

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), passed in 1990, requires businesses to accommodate physically impaired individuals to access their services.

This now extends to having an ADA complaint website. Now websites and blogs must be accessible to people with disabilities.

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Why is having an ADA compliant website necessary?

According to the Title I&III of ADA, any business operating with more than 15 employees for 20 weeks a year and those with public accommodations must be ADA compliant. Well it gets quite tricky when it comes to website compliance especially when there are no set rules for it.

You may be at the risk of hefty fines and lawsuits if your content isn’t compliant with the standards set by ADA.

However, even if your business is in a position of paying fines, it can damage your brand name. The trust and opinion of your customers might not be the same when they see that you don’t care about the disabled ones.

What if your website doesn’t fall under any of the Title I or III of ADA? In that case making your website ADA compliant can be a value addition.

Now, you may be wondering how to make a website ADA compliant? Well here are some steps to learn how to make a website ADA compliant.

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How can I check if my website is ADA compliant?

Before getting into depth of how to make a website ADA compliant, let’s see how you can check if your website is ADA compliant or not:

• Free Checker Tools – Numerous online tools are available to check the accessibility of your website such as:
  • Lighthouse,
  • World Wide Web Consortium
  • and WAVE being the most popular ones.

However, a limitation of these sites is that you can just check a page at a time, rather than the whole website.

• Manual Audit – You can also check the accessibility of your website manually. All you have to do is evaluate each web page against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) or check the list below.

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How to Make a Website ADA Compliant Today

Now you must be curious about how to make a website ADA compliant. There are some options you can select from to develop ADA compliant websites:

ADA Compliance Plugins for WordPress – If you’re already using WordPress for your website, then you’re a one step ahead of others in creating ADA compliant website.

WordPress offers you an easy access to a number of ADA compliance plugins. These work by adding some tools which can be used by the audience to make website accessible.

WP Accessibility Helper and Accessibility Suite are the two most popular plugins on WordPress.

You can select the one for you by considering its price, features and reviews; whichever makes a best fit for you.·        

Hire This Freelancer I Used – You may not be comfortable in auditing your own website and that’s completely fine. Another option available for you in that case is to hire a freelancer to get your job done.

You can select freelancer from freelance websites like Upwork or Fiverr.

From Fiverr, I would personally recommend Ran Nahmany. I’ve hired him for ADA compliance of two of my websites and it was a pleasure working with this guy. He made everything clear to me and answered all my questions before hiring him.

The way Ran makes your website ADA compliant is by adding a button on the bottom left of your site, which a reader can then choose how to adjust your site. I asked Ran how exactly this works on a user’s end and he said,

“People with disabilities use a unique solution on their pc or smartphone, that lets them use it much more effectively than you would imagine. Blind, for example, use a very smart browser feature tthat reads for them and lets them “jump” between all the objects in the page easily. So when he or she opens the page, the first object they run into is the widget that we’ve implemented. They know to recognize it and use its features based on their disability.”

Ran Nahmany

Note: I used this option for two of my blogs. If you are a business with more than 15 employees for 20 week, please reach out to Ran Nahmany and see if this is a suitable option for you.

Hire Ran Nahmany today to make your website ADA compliant!

Free Plugins – Various plugins are also available which will not only check the accessibility of your website but also propose the effective plan to get it all set.

Axe, Accessibility Insights for Web and Wave Evaluation are some of the free plugins that you can use for auditing your website.

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ADA Website Compliance Checklist

If you are using WordPress ADA compliance plugin or have hired someone for your website such as Ran Nahmany, the freelancer I used, it’s a good idea to manually check your site as a precaution.

You can either use one of the tools listed above check whether your website follows all the guidelines of ADA or you can do it manually with this checklist that’ll help with how to make a website ADA compliant.

Here is a brief checklist for you:

• Alt tags for images, audio and video content
• HTML tags for online forms
• Descriptive anchor text for each hyperlink 
• Skip navigations links for each web page 
• Heading tags for written content
• Access to PDF files
• Subtitles, description and transcripts for video content
• Color contrasting compliant with WCAG
• Readable fonts
• Column headers, row and cell identifiers for HTML tables
• Textual captions for audio files
• Website accessibility through keyboard navigation
• Area labels for CTA buttons

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Now, when you’ve learned how to make a website ADA compliant, you’re all set to unlock full potentials of your business website! Just install a plugin or hire an expert and you can get easily make your website accessible to a wider audience.

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How to Make a Website ADA Compliant