Websites owners who invest in accessibility solutions see significant upticks in organic traffic.
This isn’t just an empty proclamation: according to research conducted by SEMrush, over 73% of websites that implemented accessibility improvements saw a measurable increase in organic traffic - an average growth of 12%.
And as it turns out, a bump in traffic is just one part of the story.
Accessibility has a transformative effect on how your website performs; from how users find it, to how they experience it, to whether they convert once they’re there.
In this blog, we’ll break down the performance impact of accessibility, showing how it improves SEO, improves user experience, expands audience reach, and helps drive real business results.
Accessibility and SEO are built on the same technical foundation. Both rely on clean, structured code, meaningful content labeling, and mobile-friendly, responsive design.
When you make your site accessible, you also make it easier for search engines to crawl, understand, and rank your content.
Here are a few notable examples:
When companies take the necessary steps to improve their site’s accessibility, they see considerable results.
In a SEMrush study, researchers analyzed 847 websites that implemented accessibility fixes and tracked their SEO performance over time.
The findings were clear: 73.4% of those sites saw an increase in organic traffic, with an average growth of 12%.
The study also found that sites with higher initial traffic saw even stronger performance gains, suggesting that accessibility improvements scale with site size.
According to Accessibility Checker, a partner in this research, websites experienced a 113% increase in organic traffic after installing accessWidget, accessiBe's AI-powered accessibility solution.
To learn more about accessWidget, press here.
Accessibility improves UX and usability
While accessibility features are essential for people with disabilities, they also tend to improve the overall usability of your site, making it easier to navigate, understand, and interact with.
Intuitive, clear navigation assists all:
- Ensuring consistent, intuitive navigation helps those who rely on screen readers or keyboard navigation (e.g., people with vision or motor disabilities) move through your site via a logical focus order and visible indicators. These same patterns also guide all users through your pages more smoothly.
- Ensuring forms are properly labeled and provide clear error messaging helps people with disabilities, especially those using assistive technology or keyboard navigation, complete tasks like checkout without confusion. These same improvements also streamline form completion and reduce drop-off rates for all users
- Offering adjustable visual settings like high contrast, text resizing, and motion control (achievable via solutions such as accessWidget) supports people with cognitive or sensory disabilities. These features also improve readability and comfort for all users, especially in varied lighting conditions or on smaller screens
When you invest in digital accessibility, you open your digital doors to visitors and potential customers with immense spending power. Treating them with the respect they deserve, and are too often denied, makes it far more likely they’ll stay, engage, and convert.
Members of the global disability community and their extended networks represent more than $13 trillion in annual disposable income.
That value only translates into business outcomes when people are able to access and use your site from start to finish…
Investing in accessibility also helps extend your reach to groups your site may not be fully optimized for.
Aging adults, mobile-first shoppers, and people navigating in non-native languages all rely on responsive design, proper markup, and streamlined navigation - core tenets of accessibility.
Just as importantly, embracing accessibility clearly signals just how seriously you value inclusivity. In an era in which consumers are becoming increasingly selective about the brands they choose to support, this can prove to be a meaningful differentiator.
Recent research has shown that 77% of consumers are more likely to purchase from companies committed to making the world a better place.
Additionally, 66% say they’re willing to pay more to support businesses that prioritize social responsibility - a category accessibility very much falls under.
Start benefiting from an accessible website
Taking meaningful steps to ensure your website can be accessed by all is easier than ever before. accessiBe offers businesses of all sizes a variety of innovative solutions and services that expand your audience, help boost site performance, and mitigate legal risk under laws such as the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
Ready to learn how accessiBe can help you with your accessibility goals? Press here.
Frequently asked questions about how web accessibility improves website performance
Q1. How does accessibility impact website traffic and reach?
A1. Accessible websites open up access to a much larger audience—including people with disabilities—and search engines that prioritise usability. Some studies show websites that invest in accessibility improvements can see measurable increases in organic traffic, broader keyword rankings, and stronger site authority.
Q2. Why does accessibility lead to better user experience and engagement?
A2. When sites offer clear navigation, properly labelled images, good contrast, keyboard-friendly controls and predictable structure, all users benefit. Reduced friction means fewer bounce rates, longer session durations, better conversion paths and higher satisfaction, which in turn positively affect performance metrics.
Q3. In what ways does accessibility overlap with SEO and technical performance?
A3. Many accessibility best practices align with SEO and performance optimisation: meaningful alt text, semantic HTML structure, skip-links, heading hierarchies, captioned media and mobile responsiveness make the site easier for both users and search engines to understand and index. Additionally, streamlined code and simpler layouts often load faster and perform better.
Q4. What business outcomes can companies expect when they improve accessibility?
A4. Companies may see increased traffic, higher conversion rates, improved user retention, reduced support costs, broader brand appeal and stronger reputation for inclusivity. Accessibility becomes not just a compliance measure, but a strategic growth lever.
Q5. How should an organisation begin improving performance through accessibility?
A5. Start with an accessibility audit to identify barriers, prioritise fixes in high-impact areas (navigation, forms, images/media), align site architecture with semantic markup, optimise for speed and mobile, monitor user metrics (bounce, sessions, conversions) and link these back to accessibility improvements. Accessibility should be integrated into ongoing content, design, and development workflows.
Q6. How can accessiBe help organizations improve website performance through accessibility?
A6. accessiBe offers the best in AI and human expertise. Its solutions deliver end-to-end accessibility and compliance support, including automated scanning and remediation, expert audits and manual fixes, and continuous monitoring. By strengthening accessibility, organizations not only reduce their compliance risk but also enhance website performance--through improved engagement, discoverability and user satisfaction.
