The internet should work for everyone. ADA standards for accessible design help make that happen.
If your website isn’t usable by people with disabilities, you’re not just losing traffic, you’re risking legal headaches and leaving revenue on the table. At Foxtown Marketing, we help businesses stay compliant and create better experiences for all users.
Here’s what you need to know to align your site with ADA standards for accessible design.
🧠 What Are ADA Standards for Accessible Design?
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires that digital content be accessible to individuals with disabilities. These standards are guided by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), which cover everything from visual design to navigation, multimedia, and more.
Bottom line: Your website should be perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust for everyone.
🚨 Why Accessibility Isn’t Optional
Following ADA standards for accessible design benefits your business in more ways than one:
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✅ Legal protection from lawsuits and demand letters
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✅ SEO boost, since accessible sites tend to perform better
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✅ Improved usability for all users—not just those with disabilities
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✅ Expanded audience reach (over 60 million U.S. adults live with a disability)
🔧 How to Meet ADA Standards for Accessible Design
Want to know where to start? Here are key steps to optimize your website’s content and structure:
1. Use Proper Headings
Organize your content with a logical heading structure (<h1>, <h2>, <h3>, etc.). This helps screen readers—and real people—understand your site better.
2. Write Descriptive Alt Text
Images need alternative (alt) text to describe what’s in them. This isn’t just for accessibility—it helps with search engines too.
3. Ensure Color Contrast
ADA standards require sufficient contrast between text and background. Stick to at least a 4.5:1 ratio for body text.
🛠 Use tools like WebAIM’s Contrast Checker to test your site.
4. Make Navigation Keyboard-Friendly
Users should be able to browse your site without a mouse. That means:
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Visible focus indicators
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Logical tab order
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No hover-only menus
5. Use Clear, Contextual Link Text
Avoid vague links like “click here.” Use meaningful phrases like:
🔗 Download our quick start checklist
6. Add Captions and Transcripts
Videos should include captions. Audio content? Add a transcript. These simple steps make a big impact.
7. Leverage ARIA Labels Thoughtfully
Use ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes to enhance dynamic content like sliders or dropdowns—but only when semantic HTML isn’t enough.
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IMPORTANT: Updating your website to follow ADA standards for accessible design will ALSO help you with SEO for AI.
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🧪 Quick Tools to Check Accessibility
Here are a few free tools we recommend:
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WAVE (WebAIM): Accessibility evaluation tool
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Google Lighthouse: Audit via Chrome DevTools
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axe DevTools: Chrome extension with great insights
How Foxtown Marketing Can Help
At Foxtown Marketing, accessibility isn’t an afterthought. We build it into everything we do—from content strategy and SEO to design and development.
Need to align your site with ADA standards for accessible design? We’ll help you:
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Audit your current site for compliance
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Create content that meets accessibility and SEO standards
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Work with your dev team to implement fixes (or do it ourselves)
Let’s make the web more accessible, and more effective.
