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You know how important marketing is already. But the real question is: Who’s not getting your message?

It’s easy to assume your carefully crafted campaigns are reaching everyone—but are they? What about someone using a screen reader? Or someone experiencing cognitive overload from flashing images or cluttered layouts?

You’re already working with engagement rates, algorithms, and design trends if you’re a marketer or content creator. So why do you need to worry about accessibility, too? Because accessible marketing is not optional—it’s necessary if you want to reach more, protect your brand, and build more trust.

Let’s parse out the ways that accessibility intersects with marketing now—and how it actually puts you ahead in terms of competition.

Why Accessibility Matters in Marketing

Grow Your Audience—Organically

Consider this: nearly 16% of people globally possess a disability that affects how they use the internet. If your content or site isn’t accessible, you’re missing out on a significant portion of your audience. Adding accessible marketing helps those individuals, but it also has the effect of simplifying and enhancing the experience for all, making your brand more desirable and accessible.

Improve Your Brand’s Credibility

Audiences today notice—and appreciate—brands that are concerned with being inclusive. Brands like Microsoft and Apple have established trust by being considerate and inclusive behaviors. By adopting accessible marketing, you’re broadcasting a message loud and clear: you genuinely care about your audience. That sincerity boosts customer loyalty and turns customers into brand ambassadors.

Get a Natural SEO Boost

Here’s a practical advantage: accessible marketing tends to coincide with SEO best practices. Descriptive text and clear, well-structured content help search engines and assistive technologies comprehend your content better. By making your site more accessible, you’ll not only enhance user experience but also perhaps enhance your search result visibility.

Stay Compliant and Reduce Risk

You’re probably familiar with accessibility laws like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and guidelines such as Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). Ignoring these standards can lead to serious legal consequences—something no brand wants to face. By integrating accessible marketing into your strategies, you proactively avoid these risks, protecting your business and its reputation.

Website Accessibility Tips

Make Your Content Easy to Navigate

Attempt to use only the Tab key to navigate through your site. Is it easy and self-evident? Good usage of headings (H1, H2, H3) isn’t all about design appearance—it helps users navigate without hindrance, especially those who rely on assistive technologies.

Always Add Alt Text to Images

Alt text is a short description of an image. Screen readers use this text to describe the image aloud for people who can’t see it. For example, if you have a photo of a smiling person holding a dog, your alt text could say, “A woman holding a small brown dog and laughing.”

When writing alt text, be clear and concise. Provide enough information so someone can imagine the picture if they can’t see it. This step takes only a few seconds per image, but it goes a long way in making sure everyone can follow along.

Use Clear Language and Short Sentences

Plain language is your friend. It cuts out fluff and makes your message easier to understand. Not everyone enjoys reading long paragraphs loaded with big words. Simple wording often performs better because people grasp the idea quickly. Then, they can respond, share, or buy without confusion.

Try to limit long sentences. If a sentence feels like it’s going on forever, break it into two. This helps your audience read faster and makes screen readers work better.

Check Keyboard Navigation and Focus Indicators

Not everybody is a mouse user. Well-designed visible keyboard focus indicators make it easy for users with keyboard navigation or assistive device users to access your site with ease.

Be Careful With Animated Content

Animated or blinking content can be distracting or even harmful to some users. When you use animations, always provide an easy way to pause or disable them.

Social Media Accessibility Best Practices

Alt Text Isn’t Just for Websites

Image descriptions (alt text) are supported by most social media platforms these days. Make it a habit—you’re taking a simple step toward accessible marketing.

Format Hashtags Clearly

Hashtags like #MarketingTips2023 (all capitals) are more screen-reader friendly than all-lowercase counterparts, increasing accessibility right away.

Limit Emoji Usage

Emojis are great, but they should be used only sparingly. Excessive emoji usage will provide messy audio experiences for screen reader users.

Tag Your Links with Care

“Click Here” is useless. Descriptive words like “Find our latest products” will all inform users properly of the intent of the link.

Multimedia Accessibility Strategies

Use Captions and Transcripts

Video marketing is a big part of many brands’ strategies. But some viewers are deaf or hard of hearing. Others can’t use sound at certain times, like when they’re in a library or a busy coffee shop. Closed captions let them follow the video’s message without hearing the audio.

A transcript is also helpful. It’s a written version of all the spoken words and important sounds in a video. Transcripts help search engines pick up on your keywords. This gives an added SEO boost.

Add Audio Descriptions

Audio descriptions explain to visually impaired viewers what they are missing. This action unequivocally demonstrates your brand’s commitment to accessible marketing.

Making Accessibility a Habit

Make Accessibility Part of Your Workflow

Accessibility need not be a burden. Incorporate it into your regular content creation processes—train personnel, prep checklists, and add accessibility into every campaign plan. Accessible marketing will be second nature in no time.

Regularly Improve

Accessibility is not set-and-forget. Regular testing with tools like WAVE or Lighthouse and feedback from real-life assistive tech users ensures that your marketing remains effective and inclusive.

Closing the Conversion Gap

Marketing is all about creating a connection—and that connection isn’t whole if parts of your audience are left behind. By committing to accessible marketing, you’re committing to better communication, more active relationships, and more relevant experiences for each and every individual who comes into contact with your brand.

So, how do you begin? Take what you already do so well and add accessibility to it. Utilize it to inform the way you design, write, and present content. And when you need advice, we at 216digital can keep everything in rhythm, accessible to everyone, and effective.

Great marketing is not just something that is seen or heard – it’s something that’s felt by everyone.

You’ve invested time, effort, and resources into making your website accessible—now what? Whether you’ve completed web accessibility remediation or are actively planning it, the next step is understanding how these changes impact your business goals. Accessibility improvements aren’t just about compliance; they’re about driving measurable results. From website traffic to engagement and conversion rates, every change you make has the potential to influence key marketing metrics.

But how do you connect the dots between accessibility and performance? Measuring the impact of your efforts can provide powerful insights, helping you refine your strategy and justify the investment. Below, we’ll explore which core metrics to watch, how to set up effective measurement techniques, and how to interpret these findings so that they can shape your ongoing marketing strategy.

Understanding the Marketing Payoff of Accessibility Improvements

When you enhance your site to be more accessible—maybe by improving color contrast, refining navigation for keyboard users, adding descriptive alt text to images, or ensuring multimedia content includes transcripts and captions—you’re helping visitors of all abilities have a smoother, more intuitive experience. While that’s a worthy goal in itself, these improvements can also influence how people engage with your brand online.

A More Welcoming Experience for Everyone

Accessibility isn’t only for users with disabilities; often, making content easier to parse benefits all visitors. A cleaner interface, clearer calls-to-action, and faster loading times can reduce frustration and encourage visitors to stay longer, explore more deeply, and trust your brand’s commitment to serving them.

Building on Existing Marketing Foundations

If you’ve already fine-tuned SEO, user experience (UX) design, or content marketing, accessibility improvements can boost the effectiveness of these efforts. For instance, when images have descriptive alt text, it doesn’t just help screen reader users—it also can support better image search rankings. In short, accessibility can amplify the impact of the marketing strategies you’ve worked hard to build.

Key Marketing Metrics to Monitor

To measure how accessibility changes influence your marketing goals, focus on core metrics that tell a story about user behavior, engagement, and conversion. Before implementing changes, establish benchmarks for these metrics so you can accurately track growth over time.

1. Website Traffic

Your site’s overall traffic and traffic sources can signal whether accessibility is drawing in new users or encouraging return visits. After implementing accessibility improvements, compare monthly or quarterly traffic data to your benchmarks. If the number of unique visitors increases or if you see a rise in organic search traffic, it may be partly due to your site becoming easier to navigate for all users, including those who rely on assistive technologies.

2. Bounce Rate

A high bounce rate often indicates visitors didn’t find what they were looking for or had trouble engaging with the page. Accessibility refinements—like making interactive elements more intuitive and ensuring readable text—can encourage visitors to explore more pages and stay longer. If your bounce rate drops after accessibility updates, that’s a strong indicator you’re delivering a better initial user experience.

3. Conversion Rates

Whether you want visitors to fill out a form, sign up for a newsletter, or complete a purchase, conversion rates show how effectively your website turns casual visitors into engaged participants or customers. Accessibility improvements can streamline this path, removing friction that might have previously deterred some users. Look for upticks in completed forms, successful transactions, or sign-ups following the changes you’ve made.

4. Engagement Metrics

Time on site, pages per session, and the frequency of return visits all shine a light on how interested and comfortable users are once they arrive. Accessibility-focused features like captioned videos, properly structured headings, or easily clickable buttons can create a more enjoyable browsing experience. Over time, an increase in these engagement metrics can be traced back to the site’s enhanced usability.

Methods to Measure and Attribute Results

Once you know which metrics to prioritize, it’s time to implement a measurement plan that can show the direct or indirect influence of your accessibility initiatives. Below are several methods and tools that can help you gather meaningful data.

1. Benchmarking Before and After Changes

Before rolling out your accessibility improvements, use tools like Google Analytics to record baseline metrics. These might include average monthly traffic, typical bounce rate, conversion funnels, and standard engagement levels. After the changes have been in place for a set period—often a few weeks or months—compare the new data against your benchmarks. Any positive shifts can help you see how your accessibility efforts are contributing to better outcomes.

2. A/B Testing Specific Elements

If you’re still refining your approach, consider testing pages or features. For instance, try presenting one version of a landing page with enhanced accessibility features (clear labeling, streamlined forms, strong color contrast) and another version with fewer improvements. Monitor which variant achieves higher conversion rates or lower bounce rates. By isolating certain features, you can identify which specific accessibility enhancements resonate most powerfully with users.

3. Reviewing Analytics on Assistive Technology Usage

Some analytics platforms and specialized tools can help you understand how users with assistive technologies, like screen readers, interact with your site. While you won’t often see these visitors singled out in basic analytics reports, certain surveys or session recordings (always anonymized and with proper privacy considerations) might reveal patterns in navigation. If more visitors using keyboard-only navigation or screen readers are successfully completing key actions, that’s a compelling sign your accessibility changes are having a positive effect.

4. Direct User Feedback and Surveys

Numbers are crucial, but qualitative feedback can provide context. Consider reaching out to your audience through surveys or feedback forms that specifically ask about the site’s usability and clarity. If visitors comment that it’s easier to find products or read blog posts since recent updates, that personal insight can validate your quantitative data. Even an open-ended prompt like “How can we make our site more user-friendly?” may yield telling feedback. Better yet, if you have a dedicated user base that includes people who rely on assistive technologies, invite them to share their experiences. Their insights can help explain why certain metrics changed—and suggest new opportunities for improvement.

5. Accessibility Testing Tools and Audits

Tools like WAVE and Lighthouse can run automated checks to highlight where your site excels and where it might still be falling short on accessibility standards. These audits can’t directly tell you how conversions or bounce rates change, but they can ensure that you’re making genuine, meaningful improvements to the user experience. By regularly auditing, you maintain a level of quality that can translate into better marketing performance over time.

Integrating Accessibility into Your Ongoing Marketing Strategy

For those who’ve completed accessibility remediation or are deep into the planning process, it’s important to view these changes not as a one-time project, but as a continuous element of your online presence. To keep accessibility efforts aligned with your marketing goals:

1. Make Accessibility a Standard Part of Your Workflow

Rather than seeing accessibility as a separate task, integrate it into your content creation, campaign planning, and website updates. That way, new blog posts, landing pages, and marketing materials will be accessible from the start, ensuring long-term consistency.

2. Train Your Team on Best Practices

Share guidelines and tips with everyone involved in your marketing and website development. When the whole team understands the importance of descriptive link text, proper heading structure, and inclusive media formats, accessibility becomes second nature—and its marketing benefits compound over time.

3. Keep Monitoring and Iterating

Markets shift, user expectations evolve, and technology changes. Make it a habit to review accessibility metrics alongside other key marketing KPIs. If conversions start to plateau, examine whether new accessibility enhancements could remove a new barrier. As you refine your approach, keep using data to inform your next steps.

The Bigger Picture: Trust, Loyalty, and Growth

At its core, effective accessibility improvements help you create a site that’s genuinely welcoming. It’s about minimizing frustration, simplifying navigation, and making it easier for all visitors—whether they have a disability or not—to connect with your content and your brand.

By actively measuring the impact of these changes, you show that you’re not just making improvements as a formality. You’re committed to understanding their effect and using that insight to guide your marketing strategy forward. Over time, this transparency and responsiveness can enhance your reputation, build trust, and foster loyalty, creating a multiplier effect on your growth.

If you haven’t yet started your journey toward web accessibility, now is the time to take the first step. Schedule an ADA briefing with 216digital using the contact form below, and let us help you create a more inclusive and impactful digital presence.

How to Make Your Marketing More Accessible