A website that prioritizes ADA compliance and SEO will have a higher chance of ranking in the Google SERPs.

The importance of ADA compliance for business websites has risen in recent years. The ADA Compliance law requires businesses to be accessible and usable by people with disabilities. 

When a website complies with the ADA, it will become available to a larger audience and boost your search engine rankings. Most of the necessary components of making your website ADA compliant go hand-in-hand with SEO best practices.

In the past few months, we have seen Google implement updates that target user experience on their search engine results pages (SERPs). We believe that Google released this update to help provide better information for users with different disabilities.

The purpose of this blog post is to cover ADA Compliance and how it impacts SEO, as well as some tips on how you can stay compliant while optimizing your website!

What does ADA stand for?

ADA stands for the American Disabilities Act, a federal law requiring physical access to buildings, vehicles, public transportation, and communication systems. With so many online services now available remotely or through mobile devices, ADA Compliance for websites has never been more critical.

Title III of ADA states that the following types of websites need to be compliant:

• Places of lodging
• Food and drink establishments
• Place os exhibition or entertainment
• Places of public gathering
• Sales or rental establishments
• Service establishments
• Public transportation terminals, depots, or stations
• Places of public display or collection
• Places of recreation
• Places of education
• Social service center establishments
• Place of lodging

What makes a website ADA Compliant?

Title III of ADA is a law that shows how a business can ensure its website is accessible and usable by people with disabilities. If you haven’t already, it is time to ensure that your website follows ADA Compliance and SEO best practices by including:

1. A responsive design
2. Proper heading structures
3. Title tags
4. Alt text for images

A responsive website design for ADA Compliance and SEO

A responsive website design is essential for ADA Compliance and SEO. A responsive website design is a site that automatically changes to fit the size of any device’s screen. As a result, those with disabilities and people who use smartphones or tablets for their internet access can easily use ADA-compliant websites. 

To check to see if your website follows the Title III ADA compliance and SEO best practices, head over to Google Page Speed Insights and input your URL. Pay close attention to how quickly your website loads for both desktop and mobile devices. If your website has slow website speeds, then you do not have a responsive website design.

Other attributes of a responsive website design include:

• Ease of website navigation
• Readability

Heading Structures for ADA Compliance and SEO

A headings structure is essential for ADA Compliance and SEO. A proper heading structure allows a user to know where they are in the hierarchy of a webpage. In HTML <h1> through <h6> are section heading elements to help define the content hierarchy within a website. The <h1> heading will indicate what the webpage is about to the user and search engine crawlers and the subheadings(<h2>,<h3>,<h4>,<h5>,<h6>) will be supporting content.

Content that is properly structured will be easier to read and follow. When utilizing headings, you will want to ensure that they are in order and don’t skip ahead in the hierarchy chain. Lastly, when you create strong content with the correct heading structure, you will increase the chances of your content appearing as a featured snippet on the SERPs.

Title tags for ADA Compliance and SEO

Title tags are essential for ADA Compliance and SEO. It is the first thing that a user sees on the search engine results page. With proper title tags, locating and reading the title tag will be easy for those that use screen readers.

The title tag that you use needs to reflect the content of a page accurately. When constructing a title tag, include the focus keyword and a power word so that the user and search engines know the page’s purpose. Appropriately crafted title tags increase the chance of the title getting clicked on!

Alt text for ADA Compliance and SEO

The alt text offers search engines and those that use a screen reader an accurate description of a visual piece of content on the website. The alt text is a piece of code that lives in the backend of a website that a screen reader reads aloud to a visually impaired user. 

SEO professionals know that including alt text is an essential part of a search engine showing a website’s images.

Wrapping up

We hope you enjoyed learning about ADA Compliance and SEO! The professionals at Algorithmic Global currently offer restoration digital marketing services. They have focused on staying on top of the latest SEO best practices that also follow ADA compliance.

Staying on top of ADA compliance and following SEO best practices is beneficial for business owners, website designers, and SEO professionals who want all people—including visitors with disabilities—to locate and view your content.

Please leave a comment below if you know of any additional attributes that website managers should follow for ADA compliance!