Website Compliance
Several years ago, Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the internet, set up a set of standards to ensure that everyone, irrespective of ability, could access websites.
Having taken the time and trouble, not to mention investment, in creating your website, you want as many people as possible to be able to access your key marketing messages, Products, Services and Company Information.
By ensuring that your website is compliant you are ensuring that the maximum number of people possible can access your website as well as the following business benefits:
- It will download faster, making it more likely that visitors will stay and browse
- It can improve your search engine positioning and provide a positive public image
- It can be reached by all users; including those using other devices and different browsers
- Reaching your maximum audience can increase enquiries and improve sales
- A well constructed website will reduce your maintenance costs and issues
- In the UK, 8.6 million people are registered disabled, that could be 15% of your target audience
In addition to these Business benefits you will also be ensuring that you are minimising the issues associated with the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) and demonstrating that, as a Company, you are aware of these issues and take care to ensure that your website complies with Internet guidelines.
Website Compliance Testing
SME Websites Ltd provide a Compliance Testing service. We will test your website for compliance with the W3C and WAI \ Bobby standards and provide you with a report, in an easy to understand format, indicating the issues you may have with your existing website.
Understanding these issues will allow you to focus your marketing effort and may indicate why your website has not been performing as you would have hoped. A fully compliant website will also assist in your search engine optimisation activities.
Test your own Website for Compliance
Why not test your own website. There are various tools and websites that allow you to test your own website and give you an indication of your compliance levels.
In addition to compliance testing you should check your website for usability. Check the following:
- Can you resize the text using your browser settings?
- What does your website look like on a different screen size (resolution)?
- What does your website look like on a different browser: IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, etc
- Do you need to use the ‘back’ button to navigate between pages?
- Does your website use ‘Frames’?
- Is there a horizontal scroll bar?
- Is there sufficient contrast between text, background and link colours?
These are just some of the common mistakes which make your website more difficult to use, all of which are easily fixed and greatly increases the profile and usability of your website.
SME Websites Ltd would recommend using http://validator.w3.org/ to test your website for compliance with W3C and WAI standards.
Feel free to contact us if you have tested your website, but are not quite sure how to interpret the results.
