How much money is your company missing out on by ignoring people with disabilities? According to Diversity Inc. and data collected from the U.S. Census Bureau people with disabilities have the most buying power of any traditionally underrepresented group amounting to $1 trillion dollars including $220 billion in discretionary income.

It’s a proven fact that once people that have a disability find a resource they can depend on for their needs they will be one of your most loyal customers.

Instead of leaving the money on the table, how would you like some of that money coming into your business?

Technology is now at the point where people with many different types of disabilities can access the internet. These are people with money to spend. Everyone, no matter if you are able bodied or have a disability of some sort, we all have to bath, dress, eat, and most of us have hobbies and other things we like to do.

Imagine if you will, for example, you’re blind and a visitor to your website. How viewable is your website? Will they be able to read the pictures? Can they read the diagrams on your site? Are you using text that scrolls making it more difficult for screen readers to understand?

Here is just a few tips business owners can apply to their websites to make them more accessible:

1). Avoid Bit-map text, using ALT text instead

2). Avoid Scrolling or moving text

3). Use Colors on your site that contrast well

4). Make sure that all information portrayed using color is also portrayed without color

5). Use descriptive ALT text for images

6). Use Client side image maps instead of server side image maps

7). When making a list, give the number of items in the upcoming list, and number the list items

8). Keep form labels next to form fields

9). Provide a no frames option

10). When using audio and video provide a transcript that corresponds

11). When at all possible write it instead of using drawings

12). Write good content and design for everyone

13). Remember the mobile user. Include “skip links” so that the user can skip over navigation and secondary content

14). Make sure that you have alternatives to using Javascript code

15). Use plain and simple language

16). Make your font so that it can be resized

17). Make sure that all the spelling on the site is correct

18). Provide a site map

19). Have a search feature on your site

20). Make sure Adobe Access is available for PDF files

Diversity Inc. published a very interesting article highlighting what business owners are missing out on when failing to take into consideration the needs of people that have a disability whether the business is run online or offline. You can check the article out here:

http://www.diversityinc.com/public/4477.cfm