Is Your Website at Risk for Thousands in Fines?

TL;DR : Your website need to be updated for ADA Compliance or you’ll be at risk for thousands in lawsuits and fines. The government is offering a tax credit for making these changes and we can help! Contact us here for a quote.

Let’s face it, you probably don’t know a ton about how your website is built. And why should you? That’s why you paid the high price tag for a developer to build it for you. You’ve got enough on your plate as a business owner already and understanding code, templates, UX/UI best practices is not very high on your priority list. However, with new ADA compliance regulations gaining speed, you may want to shuffle this to the top of your list.

Business owners all over the country are getting hit hard with fines and lawsuits for websites that aren’t accessible to everyone (think visual and hearing impaired individuals). At first, it seems intuitive that websites would be naturally ADA compliant, but the truth is that if your website lacks the foundational best practices for search and readability then it’s likely vulnerable to legal action or fines.

Don’t panic yet, it’s still early enough to make sure your website falls within these new guidelines before it’s too late. Here, we’ll break down what you need to know about the new regulations, how to find issues, and how to fix them if they exist.

What is ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) Compliance?

First, it’s important to understand the origin of the new regulations and guidelines for websites. Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act covers the necessity for public accommodations and services operated by private entities to be compliant. Courts have ruled overwhelmingly that websites fall under this category, especially when they are operating within the 12 identified public accommodations categories within the act.

1. an inn, hotel, motel, or other place of lodging, except for an establishment located within a building that contains not more than five rooms for rent or hire and that is actually occupied by the proprietor of such establishment as the residence of such proprietor;

2. a restaurant, bar, or other establishment serving food or drink;

3. a motion picture house, theater, concert hall, stadium, or other place of exhibition entertainment;

4. an auditorium, convention center, lecture hall, or other place of public gathering;

5. a bakery, grocery store, clothing store, hardware store, shopping center, or other sales or rental establishment;

6. a laundromat, dry-cleaner, bank, barber shop, beauty shop, travel service, shoe repair service, funeral parlor, gas station, office of an accountant or lawyer, pharmacy, insurance office, professional office of a health care provider, hospital, or other service establishment;

7. a terminal, depot, or other station used for specified public transportation;

8. a museum, library, gallery, or other place of public display or collection;

9. a park, zoo, amusement park, or other place of recreation;

10. a nursery, elementary, secondary, undergraduate, or postgraduate private school, or other place of education;

11. a day care center, senior citizen center, homeless shelter, food bank, adoption agency, or other social service center establishment; and

12. a gymnasium, health spa, bowling alley, golf course, or other place of exercise or recreation.

You can read Title III in its entirety here. Websites have essentially replaced storefronts as the first point of contact that a consumer has with a business. This became even more significant during the COVID-19 quarantine shut down in which the majority of consumer interactions with private business entities was online.

Why Do I Need to Make My Website Compliant?

Ultimately, if your private entity has had to make any accommodations to make your physical office or storefront compliant then it is safe to assume you’ll be required to do these things to your web presence as well.

It’s important to note, however, that no one is exempt from this compliance. Even in cases where it is not required by law to adjust your website accessibility, you are still vulnerable to discrimination lawsuits if your website is not compliant.

Additionally, as SEO experts it’s safe to assume that search algorithms will likely be updating in the future to show preferential placement to compliant sites. We’ve seen this happen in the past with mobile optimization. At first, it was just strongly recommended to have a mobile friendly site, but with the shift in internet traffic to over 80% of all web traffic coming from mobile devices it has become a mandatory requirement for search visibility. Long story short, if you care about your website getting seen on popular search engines like Google, you’ll need to make sure your website is ADA compliant.

As if the above reasons aren’t enough to sway you, the government is also offering a significant tax credit of up to $5000 towards expenses to make your website ADA compliant. This credit is offered to businesses with revenues of $1M or less or have 30 or less full time employees. More information about the tax credit can be found here.

How Do I Make Sure My Website is ADA Compliant?

There are lots of web developers out here who are going to inflate the cost of these services as they become more and more necessary so it’s important to understand the basics for what is needed for compliance. The first step is take a critical look at your website from multiple perspectives. At its core, the regulations are about the end user’s experience. Asking yourself the following questions can help create a starting point:

1. Is my website easy to read on a desktop and a mobile device?

2. Can I find information easily, like shopping cart buttons and contact information?

3. Are my images named correctly?

4. Do I have meta tags and descriptions on all of the images on my website?

5. Do all of my videos have captions?

6. Are there any dead ends, confusing redirects, or broken links?

Most of these questions are SEO best practices, so if your website is already well optimized then the majority of the work is done for you. If you haven’t optimized your website for search yet and aren’t sure where to start, we can help! Our web design services include SEO and indexing in our fees. Learn more about what we offer here.

From there, you have a few options. Many plugins exist today that are affordable and easy to install. Our favorite is Userway, which offers adjustments for a multitude of disabilities and their pricing is based on traffic making it low cost for smaller businesses.

You can also engage a customer developer to write custom code adjustments to your website. This is an expensive option that will require upkeep, so be sure to consider the long term costs before going down this road.

Although it seems like an ever moving target, your website requires regular updates and adjustments in order to keep up with a constantly changing world. Owning a business means having a website, and having a website means assuming the responsibility of keeping it current. At Marketing Juice, we’re committed to providing quality marketing services at affordable rates for our clients. Let us take on the headache of managing your digital presence so you can focus on growing your business. Get in touch with us here to learn more.