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WordPress Website ADA Compliant

8 Best Tips to Make Your WordPress Website ADA Compliant

Do you want to make your website as accessible as possible… ???
(8 Best Tips To Make Your WordPress Website ADA Compliant)

You have come to the right page then….!!!!! Every website has a purpose of serving all but when you don’t prioritize making your WordPress website ADA compliant then a large portion of the audience remains deterred from accessing your website. This may turn into a massive loss to your business as well. Before knowing the tips to make the website ADA compliant, Let’s dig into some of its basics…!!!!!

What is ADA Compliance?

ADA- A 1990 Act- known as the Americans With Disabilities Act. It is a standard in the US to check the accessibility of the disabled. It ensures to give equal rights for disabled to normal people.

With context to the internet, ADA Compliance means your websites should be accessible to everyone including people with disabilities. You are bound to follow different guidelines to make your site Compliant. In reference to this, WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) offers the most comprehensive rules bucket to make websites more accessible. Just follow the guidelines and you are ready to get a fully accessible website that will be ADA Compliant.  Now as you have read about the term, let’s jump to know why is this so important for your digital presence?

Why Make Your Website ADA Compliant?

The act specifically tells you to adhere to the guidelines of accessibility policies. If you don’t follow this suit, you can be in legal trouble also. In addition to this, there are so many reasons to make your WordPress Website ADA Compliant.

  • It aids you in increasing your target audience because lacking this you can miss several people who want to access your website but are unable to do so.
  • It assists you in improving your website’s search engine optimization efforts.
  • ADA Compliance can help you to get good brand recognition and also people’s trust in you will increases.
  • Obviously, when more people will get access, the usability of your web presence enhances.

In short, your web presence is greatly affected by the Compliance guidelines and you will get a high ranking in Google search results than making your dream website reach its goal. After knowing the benefits of the ADA Complaint website, let’s read about some tips and tricks to make your WordPress Website ADA Compliant….!!!!

Best Tips to Make Your WordPress Website ADA Compliant

Opt For Keyboard Friendly Website

Your website can be fully accessible when the users will navigate it properly through the keyboards because they might be unable to use the mouse to access web pages. This is considerable especially for the people facing motor disablement So while making the website, you should keep in mind that the entire content of the website should be accessible through the keyboards.

Some Considerable Points for Keyboard-Friendly Websites:

  • The menus should be configured for the pages having local menus and sub-items.
  • Break long pages with anchor links, So that keyboard-only users can skip some irrelevant portions. (You can also provide the option of skip-to-main content at the top of web pages)
  • Avoid using mouse-hover-only activation elements.

But also the accessibility of the website depends on the theme you are choosing while making the website. You have to check WordPress theme accessibility for this. But how will you do this?

For this, the WordPress theme repository allows you to check this through their accessibility criteria. The WordPress Theme Review Handbook has some guidelines to pass the accessibility test where you can also check the keyboard navigation. If your website theme passes these tests then you are good to go for the accessible website. Consider these points and check the theme accessibility to reach out to a large audience.

A Good Use of Header Tags

Headings in the content give a good sense of page organization and structure. As you know, headings are usually larger and more distinctive than other content, So the visitors catch the important content at once. Visually apparent headings are good for people with cognitive disabilities.

Headings are the main focus while navigating page content. Readers can easily skip the irrelevant headings and their content and jump to the next section as desired. You should use h1, and h2 headings in an organized way to make the content more readable.

Some Considerable Points For Good Use of Header Tags:

  • <h1> is for primary headings or titles only. So avoid using it anywhere else in the content.
  • Use headings in a systematic order <h1>, <h2>, <h3> to make the content organized.
  • Avoid skipping the heading levels like <h1> to <h3> directly.

Moreover, Search engines can easily categorize your content as per headings and help the users to understand each page’s content. WordPress allows you to add headings on each page easily with the help of heading blocks. So follow some simple guidelines and make your content impressive and easy to read.

WordPress Plugins Assistance (WordPress Website ADA Compliant)

There are numerous WordPress plugins and tools to assist you in getting ADA Compliance for your WordPress website. You are able to scan the whole website with the use of accessibility plugins and fix the issue if you find any.

If you have a stable website then there is no need to perform accessibility evaluations frequently. An occasional evaluation check is a must for changeable websites that needs continuous updates.

There are many ways to make your website accessible. But choosing the right WordPress Theme plays a very important role in this. So pick the theme wisely as there are numerous options available. There is no surety to making your website fully accessible via using the plugins only. But they are of great importance to scan your site and make some changes to the accessibility needs. So take some assistance from WordPress plugins and have some more suggestions to make your website valuable.

Images With Alt Text

The written text description which appears on the screen is called Alt Text. This is specially added under the images because sometimes images fail to load and the user can read the text. It is also important to convey the message to the users. Alt Text also provides context to the search engines that indirectly help you to get a higher rank in Google search results.

Some of the Important Points to Consider:

  • No need to add text for decorative images.
  • Description in the Alt text should not be the same as the image itself. Write with the context of the page.
  • Try to use short and simple text.
  • If you are using link images then try to explain the link in Alt text.

Adding Alt Text to the images on your website is very simple. Adding Alt text is very important as per ADA Compliance guidelines as it will serve a good purpose for visually impaired people.

Take Color Choice Seriously

Color is the very first thing that catches the eye of the visitors. So choosing color contrast is a very crucial step to make a website accessible. Poor vision people or color-blind users can have a very bad impact on the poor color contrast on your website.

The most common mistake of color contrast is a red-green color deficiency. Users can be unable to understand your message if you use only such colors. Bad color contrast can have a bad impact on the reading experience of people with learning disabilities.

You should consider hexadecimal numbers for background colors. Some of the WordPress plugins have the tester to check color contrast problems. So make sure to take color choice very seriously.

Use of Clear Call-to-Actions (WordPress Website ADA Compliant)

One of the good tips to make the website more accessible is using clear and unique call-to-actions link texts So that the readers can have no problem accessing the web pages. For example, in turn of writing “To Know More” write “To Know More About This Service”. Suppose you have more than one CTA stating “To Know More” then definitely you are going to confuse your readers if you will not use a clear statement for CTAs.

Some Important Points To Consider for Call-to-Actions:

  • The text used should be simple.
  • The text should be distinctive for the different terms.
  • Try to use clear and effective text to avoid any confusion.
  • Color contrast for the CTA should be strong.
  • CTAs should be keyboard accessible.

So, if you want to make sure that your CTAs are accessible then try to consider these points while creating them. Find the right balance of text wording, placement, and colors to fulfill the ADA compliance checks.

Consideration of Online Tool For Accessibility Evaluation

Accessibility is a very vast problem while making a website, So it is necessary to evaluate each and everything to make sure that the website passes through all tests. If you avoid a single factor that can lead to deferring a large audience to reach you.

To evaluate, you can use web accessibility evaluation tools to find any issue related to accessibility that can impact your website’s performance. There is a famous online tool called WAVE (Website Accessibility Evaluation) which offers you a vast set of tools to scan your website and find the issues related to the accessibility of the site.

You just have to enter the URL to their home page and they will provide you with a full report for any accessibility alerts. You can just click those alerts or errors and it will take you to the related page. Evaluation can play a very important step to reach out to every visitor and make your website as accessible as possible. You should consider this tip after following all the given tips to make your website ADA Compliant. 

Always Tests Empty or Broken Links

An empty link means there is no text for a link or the link is empty so it confuses the visitor about the destination of the link. Avoid using links that lack text as it can confuse your visitors. The accessibility of the link is defined by the text used for it. Review all the web pages and check for any broken or empty like to make sure that your visitors find your website more accessible and friendly.

You should consider checking external links also while making your website link accessible as they are also important for search engine optimization. So, You should always check your website for any sort of broken or empty links to make your website more accessible and draw visitors’ attention.

Wrapping-Up (WordPress Website ADA Compliant)

Making a fully functional website with accessibility for all visitors can have a very big impact on your digital business. Checking your WordPress website to be ADA compliant is a big task, try considering these given tips to make sure your website fulfills compliance guidelines. You can also opt for ADA Compliant Services to cross the accessibility barrier.

It is everyone’s right to access the web pages present on the internet, So it's your responsibility to reach out to all the people and make them comfortable while using your website.

I hope you find these suggestions helpful. If you find any other tips to make the website ADA Compliant then feel free to drop your idea here.

If still, you have any queries then feel free to contact us….We will be happy to help you…!!!!




Author : Upma Singh

Upma is the Seo Executive at JoomDev. She loves exploring the latest technology trends. She has profound experience in working for IT organizations and She loves turning her ideas into reality by developing WordPress plugins and mobile app development services.

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