When you think about what makes a website successful, your mind likely jumps to design, SEO, mobile responsiveness, or fast loading times.
One element that often gets overlooked is accessibility. Website accessibility isn’t just a legal requirement, it’s a smart way to grow your audience and strengthen your brand.
Let’s plunge into why website accessibility isn’t just the right thing to do but the smart thing.
What Is Website Accessibility?
Website accessibility means designing your site so everyone can use it, regardless of ability.
According to a 2025 report on digital accessibility by Taylor Wessing, accessibility is becoming an increasingly important legal and strategic focus for businesses in the U.S.
With over 1 billion people worldwide living with disabilities, accessibility is about inclusion, not just compliance.
An accessible website caters to people who are blind or deaf, use assistive technologies like screen readers, or have cognitive or motor impairments.
This also means making sure your content is navigable, readable, and usable by as many people as possible.
Reach a Larger Audience
Accessible websites reach a much wider audience.
If someone with a visual impairment lands on your website and it doesn’t work with their screen reader, they’re not sticking around, let alone making a purchase.
According to Forbes, accessibility improves usability for everyone, and not just people with disabilities.
Features like clean navigation, readable fonts, high-contrast colors, and keyboard-friendly controls make the experience smoother for all users. These prompts are especially helpful when using an AI website builder to create your website or online store.
Integrating these features into your website design ensures no customer is unintentionally excluded.
Hocoos says an AI builder generates unique designs tailored to your business and builds your website in seconds. Nothing is stopping you from ensuring it abides by the accessibility playbook.
Better SEO
Yes, accessibility can help your site rank better on Google. Why? Well, because many accessibility best practices overlap with SEO best practices.
For example, using proper heading structures (H1s and H2s), adding alt text to images, and creating video captions also help search engines understand your content.
According to Shopify’s guide to website accessibility, structured content, and semantic HTML make your website easier to crawl and index.
Plus, accessible websites tend to have faster loading times, better mobile optimization, and lower bounce rates, all of which are SEO gold.
Avoid Legal Pitfalls
Another big reason to prioritize accessibility? It helps you stay legally compliant.
Under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), many courts view websites as “places of public accommodation,” meaning they must be accessible to people with disabilities.
In other words, they need to be accessible to people with disabilities. And lawsuits for non-compliance are on the rise, especially in the U.S., notes Route Fifty.
The digital government consultancy firm says even government websites struggle with accessibility compliance. If the government isn’t immune to criticism, private companies certainly aren’t.
Remember the famous Domino’s Pizza case? A blind customer sued the company over an inaccessible website and app. The courts sided with him.
Investing in accessibility now can save you from legal issues later.
Future-Proof Your Business
The digital world is evolving, and so are accessibility standards. Building your website with accessibility in mind sets you up for long-term success.
At the rate that technology is exploding, you no longer have an excuse. All it takes is a simple AI website builder, input your prompts for accessibility best practices, and let the AI tools do the rest. Some suite builders offer free domains, custom domains, and a site editor.
Even web design is more inclusive, from website creation with AI-powered features to ai replacing writers. Fine-tune the basics and the rest will fall into place. It’s as easy as that!
Plus, as voice search, smart devices, and AI-driven interfaces become more common, these inclusive-centered designs become even more important.
As Taylor Wessing points out, companies that stay ahead of the curve with inclusive design are more likely to thrive as technology changes.
At its core, accessibility is about people – recognizing a diverse audience and ensuring everyone has equal access to your content, products, and services.
Accessibility isn’t just a feel-good initiative, it’s a business booster. You get to grow your audience, improve SEO, build a better brand, avoid legal trouble, and stay ready for the future.
An accessible website benefits all users, not only those with disabilities. Smart businesses that recognize this are the ones that stay ahead.
