In the competitive B2B landscape, marketers are constantly optimizing experiences, but many overlook a core principle of good user experience (UX): accessibility. For too long, digital accessibility has been viewed as a niche compliance headache or a technical afterthought.

However, as Mike Barton, VP of Corporate Communications and Content Marketing at AudioEye, explains, embracing web accessibility is not just the right thing to do; it is a tremendous business growth lever that improves SEO, brand reputation, and ultimately, your entire user base’s experience.

In an episode of the Tomorrow’s Best Practices Today podcast, Mike shared why B2B marketers need to make accessibility a core part of their content creation process from day one.

 The Blind Spot: What Digital Accessibility Means

Digital accessibility means ensuring that anybody, regardless of ability or the assistive technology they use, can access and interact with your website or app in the same way.

Mike notes that for many years, accessibility was an unintentional blind spot for marketers. It’s easy to overlook that users interact with digital content in drastically different ways:

  • Screen Readers: A person who is blind uses technology that literally reads the underlying code of the screen including navigation, headers, images, and links.
  • Keyboard-Only Navigation: Users with mobility issues might navigate a site entirely using a keyboard to tab through content, rather than a mouse.

Ignoring these realities means unintentionally closing your digital door to many potential customers.

The Global Standard: WCAG

Accessibility is not subjective. It is governed by the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), a globally accepted set of 86 specific criteria that are pass or fail. While the standards are clear, the process of identifying, fixing, and maintaining compliance on a site is where expertise comes into play.

The Three Major Obstacles Marketers Must Fix

Mike notes that when most companies run their first site scan, they are shocked to find hundreds of issues per page—not per site. These issues tend to cluster into three core areas:

1. Images
  • The Problem: Screen readers rely on alt text to describe images. If the alt text is missing or too generic (e.g., just “shirt” instead of “yellow V-neck cotton t-shirt”), a blind user cannot understand the image’s content or make a purchasing decision.
  • The Solution: Make alt text descriptive and short. Critically, mark decorative images as such so the screen reader skips over them. This saves the user from consuming unnecessary content and reduces friction.
2. Links
  • The Problem: Vague link text like “Click here” or “Learn more” is unhelpful for screen readers, forcing users to click through multiple links just to find out where they’re going—a source of huge frustration.
  • The Solution: Use a high level of specificity. Instead of “Learn more,” use “Download our accessibility checklist”. This simple change not only aids accessibility but also improves SEO and discoverability.
3. Forms
  • The Problem: Forms are the lifeblood of conversion. If fields are unlabeled or incorrectly coded (e.g., placeholder text disappears, or error messages are too vague), users cannot complete the required action.
  • The Solution: Every field needs a label. Error messages must be specific (e.g., “Please enter your email in the format name@example.com,” not just “Invalid, try again”). Also, ensure the form can be navigated entirely using only a keyboard.

Accessibility as a Growth Lever

While many companies initially address accessibility due to risk management (lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act or international laws like the European Accessibility Act) , the real value lies in the business benefits.

1. Massive Market Opportunity
  • 1 in 4 people in the US have a disability. Closing the digital door to this segment means losing a huge potential customer base.
  • Loyalty and Advocacy: Users with disabilities are extremely loyal and repeat customers when they find an accessible site. They also tell friends and family (allies) who want to support businesses that prioritize accessibility.
2. Universal UX Improvement (The Rising Tide)

The improvements made for accessibility often benefit the entire user base.

  • Clarity and Simplicity: Rethinking content to be as simple, clear, and straightforward as possible (to aid users with cognitive disabilities) benefits everyone who is rushed and trying to quickly find information.
  • SEO Boost: Accessible links and alt text provide tremendous SEO lift because descriptive text helps search engines crawl content more effectively.
3. Minimal Investment, Maximum Impact

Compared to the significant investment in constant A/B testing and personalization, accessibility is a much smaller investment that immediately opens the door to a segment that was already trying to engage. It is a high-impact lever that creates trustworthy and authentic experiences.

Marketing Strategy: Shifting Left The biggest mistake is treating accessibility as a final “checkbox” compliance step. B2B marketers must “shift their thinking left”—integrating accessibility best practices into the content creation and development process from the beginning.

By making accessibility a core philosophical and technical pillar, B2B marketers can ensure their website, content, and apps are improving accessibility and therefore loyalty, findability, and bottom-line growth.

Listen to the podcast episode to gain even more insights from Mike! 

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