Question

I am the SEO Manager for a local software business, and they are weighing the pros and cons of making the website ADA compliant. Outside of possible legal issues, is there a reason to make it compliant for SEO benefit? I see some websites saying that it actually helps SEO, but we currently have dozens of high volume keywords on the first page. Thoughts?  

Answer 1

In the SEO aspect, a bunch of things you have to do to make it complaint, are SEO things. Optimized images (alt tags as an example), structured content that flows naturally like a person would speak, et al. In this instance, I would say that it does help SEO. I've not seen any "true" experiments done to prove it would help rankings on it's own. Doing those things, as we all know, will help anyway.  

Comments

I/We already implement all of the onsite "best practices" that you have mentioned. The changes being considered have more to do with design, colors, etc.  

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They want to change the design and colors for ADA compliance?  

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Diesel @martijn McClain Apparently there are some ADA compliance requirements related to design and colors. The developer and marketing manager were discussing it, and asked me about any SEO ramifications.  

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I can understand the design, in some aspects (navigation), for ADA. The only color issues I could see would be color blindness. My dad is red and green color blind. I've never heard of this being an issue or any issues he's had with sites. Now, as with anything, certain colors might contrast weird to him and make things harder to see or read; but, in general there are easy fixes in the very rare circumstance he has an issue (switch to black and white graphics, night/dark mode, or vice versa). Keep me posted though with what you hear on this. I, along with others, would definitely be interested in hearing about any color thing. ‍♂️ I'll be doing some research into that aspect as well, now.  

Answer 2

I do use some ADA tools / widgets for my site(s) and some of my client's sites as well. There are some cheap and simple things you can do to assist with being "more" compliant.  

Answer 3

Double A compliance is usually a combination of proper mobile friendly design and proper SEO. Support the initiative. Ada compliance isn't optional.