{"id":53691,"date":"2026-04-15T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailysutoon.com\/?p=53691"},"modified":"2026-04-15T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T14:00:00","slug":"wptavern-212-anne-bovelett-on-how-web-accessibility-boosts-traffic-seo-and-revenue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailysutoon.com\/?p=53691","title":{"rendered":"WPTavern: #212 \u2013 Anne Bovelett on How Web Accessibility Boosts Traffic, SEO, and Revenue"},"content":{"rendered":"
Transcript<\/p>\n
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[00:00:19] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Welcome to the Jukebox Podcast from WP Tavern. My name is Nathan Wrigley.<\/p>\n

[00:00:26] Jukebox is a podcast which is dedicated to all things WordPress, the people, the events, the plugins, the blocks, the themes, and in this case how web accessibility boosts traffic, SEO, and revenue.<\/p>\n

[00:00:39] If you\u2019d like to subscribe to the podcast, you can do that by searching for WP Tavern in your podcast player of choice, or by going to wptavern.com\/feed\/podcast, and you can copy that URL into most podcast players.<\/p>\n

[00:00:56] If you have a topic that you\u2019d like us to feature on the podcast, I\u2019m keen to hear from you and hopefully get you or your idea featured on the show. Head to wptavern.com\/contact\/jukebox and use the form there.<\/p>\n

[00:01:13] So on the podcast today we have Anne Bovelett.<\/p>\n

[00:01:16] Anne is a seasoned accessibility strategist with many years of experience in the tech industry. Her journey into accessible design began several years ago, and since then, she\u2019s become a passionate advocate for making the web a more inclusive place. Especially for WordPress users and developers. Drawing from her background in consulting, training, and her own experiences, Anne\u2019s work focuses on the intersection of accessibility, universal design, and tangible business outcomes.<\/p>\n

[00:01:46] This episode explores accessibility, not just as a moral imperative, but as a strategic advantage for website owners and businesses. Anne explains how neglecting accessibility means you are leaving serious money on the table, referencing compelling research from a variety of credible sources. These studies reveal practical data. Compliant sites enjoy increases in organic traffic, a boost in keyword rankings, stronger authority, and significant financial opportunities, sometimes running into millions and even billions.<\/p>\n

[00:02:22] Anne talks about why accessibility hasn\u2019t always been prioritised on the web, using analogies of the physical world, and the history of web development. She gets into the technical side as well, but this conversation is specifically geared towards the real world, bottom line, business benefits of accessible websites. Reach more users, boost revenue, and even reduce support costs.<\/p>\n

[00:02:46] If you\u2019re a website owner, developer, or digital business leader who\u2019s ever wondered whether accessibility is worth it, this episode is for you.<\/p>\n

[00:02:57] If you\u2019re interested in finding out more, you can find all of the links in the show notes by heading to wptavern.com\/podcast, where you\u2019ll find all the other episodes as well.<\/p>\n

[00:03:07] And so without further delay, I bring you Anne Bovelett.<\/p>\n

[00:03:17] I am joined on the podcast by Anne Bovelett. Hello Anne.<\/p>\n

[00:03:20] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> Hi Nathan. Thank you for having me today.<\/p>\n

[00:03:23] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> You are very welcome. Anne and I have been talking for quite a long time before we hit record and we\u2019ve covered a lot of ground. But the ground that we\u2019re going to cover today is all to do with accessibility, your WordPress website and why, well, why you are leaving money on the table if you are not pursuing the accessibility goals that you probably should be in the year 2026.<\/p>\n

[00:03:43] Before we begin that, I guess it would be a good idea for you, Anne, to give us your credentials. Tell us a little bit about you and how come you get to speak authoritatively about accessibility in WordPress. So over to you, give us your bio.<\/p>\n

[00:03:55] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> It\u2019s the most dangerous thing to ask me ever, right? Because I always talk too much.<\/p>\n

[00:04:01] So let me do it differently this time. When I started figuring out about accessibility, about six years ago, I quickly realised that it\u2019s not that complex to learn accessible coding. It\u2019s not that complex to learn universal design principles. But what is hard for a lot of people working in accessibility is that many of them have this very social way of acting. I do too. I\u2019m in it for the right reason, I think, because I want everybody to have freedom and also the freedom to make the same mistakes that we do, but also not to be constrained in any way.<\/p>\n

[00:04:46] And then I was speaking to accessibility specialists, remediators, and in every layer of businesses, and I realised that they were being punched upon by organisations because they were just getting too many roles in one. The expectations were insane. So companies were 2 \u2013 3000 people working for them, outputting I don\u2019t know what kinds of digital products and websites, would expect one person to be the accessibility person to guard the compliance. And I mean this is a recipe for burnout 101.<\/p>\n

[00:05:21] And one thing I don\u2019t have a lack of is a big mouth. And one of the reasons why I started working for myself is because of that big mouth. I was not material to be hired, even though I managed to work for 22 years in employment. I realised at some point, if I ask a good fee, for some reason people take me seriously. Have you ever noticed that, Nathan? The more money you ask for, the more serious they\u2019re going to take you. It\u2019s absolutely ridiculous. But that\u2019s what\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n

[00:05:59] And so I was trying to find my way in accessibility, like where do I fit in best? And then I thought, I\u2019m going to be the flag bearer and I want to teach companies. And one of the things I like to do is to beat them with their own stick. Because I don\u2019t care why someone makes whatever product, or whatever service they have accessible, I just care that they do. So if the stick that says money works, I\u2019ll beat that. I\u2019ll beat with that. It\u2019s no doubt.<\/p>\n

[00:06:35] And that\u2019s where my career started changing, and especially since the past one and a half years. Someone said, you should change your job title. You should turn it into Accessibility Strategist. Well, here we are. I don\u2019t care much for titles, but apparently that pretty much describes what I do.<\/p>\n

[00:06:57] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> It\u2019s kind of curious to me that if you were to, I say this phrase quite a lot on this podcast because there\u2019s a lot of introspection going on and a lot of gazing back in time. It\u2019s kind of curious that the accessibility bit never got importance from the get-go. And I mean right back from when the internet began.<\/p>\n

[00:07:18] There was this great promise that suddenly great swathes of information, which would\u2019ve been hither to unavailable to an awful lot of people, would suddenly be able to be parachuted into your living room via a computer and increasingly, you know, into your hand with a mobile phone.<\/p>\n

[00:07:34] And yet the technology developed, the browsers developed, the web design industry developed, and it never got that importance. I\u2019m genuinely puzzled by how that occurred. How it is that we all ignored that. And it really is probably only within the last 3, 4, 5 years that this clarion call for accessibility has become mainstream. I know that there\u2019s people that have been banging the gong probably right from the beginning, but it has been largely ignored and I find that really curious.<\/p>\n

[00:08:07] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> I think that is due to two things. First of all, because people approach this as a purely social issue that needs to be resolved, and that people can\u2019t imagine that they have certain users, which is arrogance at its finest. But, you know, that\u2019s another topic.<\/p>\n

[00:08:27] The other thing is good intentions. Like they say, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, right? Because in the beginning of the internet, when things got more colour, I always say this is the point, where things got more colourful, when Google was still small, when Alta Vista was still a thing and Yahoo and you remember, and I think we had four digit or five digit numbers for ICQ members. Actually the HTML, the sites were pretty ugly, right? They were fugly, I would say. I remember we had to build with tables and stuff, and then jump through hoops to make something look the way we wanted to.<\/p>\n

[00:09:08] But the thing is, around that time, all we had was semantic HTML. We still have that, but back then it\u2019s all we had. And because we were using semantic HTML, it was great for screen reader users, for example, and other assistive technology. But then everybody always wants to improve. They want to do better. And there is a German word for it, and I haven\u2019t found the equivalent for that in English. We call it verschlimmbesserung. It literally means, instead of improving it, maybe down proving it. It\u2019s like over-engineering.<\/p>\n

[00:09:48] So this is what happened. And then people always want to work faster and they love building tools that help others, because in a sense, we are a social species, if you like it or not. We\u2019re just social in the wrong things often, I think as a society. And from that perspective, there\u2019ve been developers that had a great idea, said, let\u2019s make frameworks, and then let\u2019s make things easier for our fellow designers and developers.<\/p>\n

[00:10:13] And very fast, at some point, semantic HTML was not a thing anymore because people were coding with div and span. And the div and span are the chameleons, the useless chameleons if you talk about accessibility, because you can make a div look like something, but you can\u2019t make it behave like something until you put a ton of JavaScript on it. Div is like tofu without seasoning, right?<\/p>\n

[00:10:41] And the same is with span. And because semantic elements like a button is challenging to style for some, a lot of frameworks came that used div and span a lot. And then they\u2019re relying on JavaScript. And then these frameworks were growing and then at some point people were like, oh, this is the biggest framework used by everybody, so it must be good. That\u2019s like saying the opinion of the majority is the truth. Unfortunately it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

[00:11:15] That is my theory. I\u2019m saying this more often. There was this time when everybody was doing Duolingo and then making big messages on social media, look, I\u2019m on a 682.5 day streak in Duolingo, developers, right? And I\u2019m like, why are you telling me about your streak for that but you can\u2019t remember 50 semantic HTML elements? That\u2019s very much also bashing the developer, which is pretty unfair because the problem is, with accessibility is, it\u2019s not taken into account from the beginning.<\/p>\n

[00:11:59] Let me compare that with another situation. So our family home burnt down to the ground and we had to rebuild, and then we got the chance to improve some things because we got modern stuff. And then, because we were building this community seminar centre at the same time, we needed to think about how we\u2019re going to build the toilets, right? And then we had to go, and here, because the architect that helped us, he was nice guy, but he didn\u2019t think about wheelchairs, about accessibility.<\/p>\n

[00:12:32] At that time, I wasn\u2019t thinking about accessibility or digital accessibility at all. But I was like, what if someone comes in with a wheelchair? Or what if we have a guest that weighs over 190 kilos? Will our toilet survive that? What kind of toilet do we need? And just close your eyes and go into that little toilet room, bathroom you call it, probably, and then close your eyes and imagine, okay, I have trouble moving, I have pain, I have rheumatism. I don\u2019t but, you know, and I\u2019m on a stick. Where do I put my stick? Do I have a place to put that in the corner? Can I reach for the paper?<\/p>\n

[00:13:13] All these practical things. These are decisions that you take before you even start building the room. And it\u2019s the same thing with anything else. Digital applications, terminals, elevators. I don\u2019t know, anything. And the thing is, the better you do it, the less people have to ask questions afterwards about, how does this work?<\/p>\n

[00:13:39] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah, it\u2019s kind of interesting because in the real world, I know that in the part of the world where I live, and I\u2019ve made this comparison on different podcasts in the past. It\u2019s so self-evident when somebody, for example, who\u2019s using a wheelchair. It\u2019s so self-evident when they can\u2019t get in the building because, well, there they are at the door with some impediment. Maybe there\u2019s three steps that are just unachievable. And it\u2019s really obvious. There they are in the real world. You walk past and you notice it. It\u2019s right there in front of you. Look, there\u2019s a problem that needs to be solved.<\/p>\n

[00:14:13] And so for the real world, the legislation in the part of the world where I am, came into effect many years ago. And so, for example, the ramps came in and all the premises that are publicly trading things must have ramps and so on and so forth.<\/p>\n

[00:14:26] However, the internet is a different animal in that most of us are browsing in the comfort of our own home. Nobody has any idea what you are browsing. Nobody\u2019s got any idea where it is failing for you because they\u2019re not staring over your shoulder. And even if they were staring over their shoulder, it would be fairly hard for them to determine that, again, to use the metaphor of getting in the building, they wouldn\u2019t see that you couldn\u2019t get in the building even if they were watching your phone. It has to be reported by you, the user that can\u2019t achieve the things. And so there\u2019s this real kind of difficulty in matching it up.<\/p>\n

[00:15:03] And also because a website kind of looks finished when it looks finished to most people, then you just put the tools away. There\u2019s the website. It looks finished, so it is finished. We\u2019re done. And of course, there\u2019s this whole increasingly vocal cohort of people who, and we\u2019ll get into them in a moment, who are not able to access these things, but they have to self-report.<\/p>\n

[00:15:31] And who do you even report to? If I can\u2019t access a building on my high street, let\u2019s say the local library, I could probably even go to the police in all honesty. There\u2019s a central place. I could go to the police, go to the council, and I could say, this must be fixed. And it, sure enough, it will be fixed. There is no equivalence here. Who would I go to to report a problem so that it will definitely be fixed.<\/p>\n

[00:15:53] So there\u2019s this whole sort of strange disconnect, which presents the problem of today. How do we encourage people who don\u2019t get the self-reporting, that it\u2019s a jolly good idea to fix the problems in advance?<\/p>\n

[00:16:08] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> Make it hurt.<\/p>\n

[00:16:08] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Or make it valuable, make the fix valuable. And in the scenario that you are describing today, we\u2019re going to talk about some articles, one of which you\u2019ve written, but also one which has been done by accessibilitychecker.org. We\u2019re going to look into those. This is making the economic argument for doing it.<\/p>\n

[00:16:26] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> I\u2019m sorry for interrupting you, but it was not just accessibilitychecker.org because then everybody\u2019s going to go, oh, yeah, another accessibility site. This was Semrush. Semrush people. They did this together with accessibilitychecker.org.<\/p>\n

[00:16:41] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Sorry, I\u2019m reading out the URL where I located it, so yeah. But the point being that there\u2019s an economic imperative. And that kind of cuts through a lot, doesn\u2019t it? You know, if you go to a business and you say to them, if we were to make this minor tweak with your business, we could increase your revenue by 0.5 of a percent. If we make these other tweaks, we can increase you by 8%, 9%, or what have you.<\/p>\n

[00:17:04] Any business owner who hears those words is going to be curious. Okay, right, you\u2019ve got my attention, now what? And although it kind of misses out the whole moral argument, like we should be making sites accessible just because that\u2019s morally the right thing to do. Put that to one side. Let\u2019s go with the economic imperative.<\/p>\n

[00:17:23] So I will link in the show notes to anything that we mention today. So I\u2019ll just drop that in. Go to wptavern.com, search for the episode with Anne, and all the links will be provided there, as well, I might add with a transcript of everything that we say today.<\/p>\n

[00:17:38] Tell us the sort of headline pieces that you found curious in the accessibilitychecker.org piece, which is obviously, as you said, created by Semrush amongst others.<\/p>\n

[00:17:47] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> I\u2019m just looking at the first page from Semrush itself. And it was interesting because they actually have an infographic on it that says, summary of findings. That\u2019s not accessible at all, but we used it in our Hackathon project last year. But they tested 10,000 websites. And this is actually what I, and many of the people in my line of work have been waiting for, data, data, data. Because this is what companies care about. And I understand that. You know, they are responsible for people\u2019s salaries, not just the revenue and the turnover, but also for the people that they employ, right?<\/p>\n

[00:18:27] And so in this research it showed, after 10,000 websites, that 70% of the sites were not compliant. Well, that\u2019s not news, right? But the thing is, they found a 23% traffic increase tied to higher compliance. 27% more keywords ranked with accessibility improvement. So this is major, but here\u2019s the biggest one. 90% boost in authority score for compliant sites.<\/p>\n

[00:18:59] And the thing is, when I read people, wow, we\u2019ve been celebrating last Friday because we had a 0.5 increase in our click rates, for example. That\u2019s another one. I\u2019m like, that could be 10% or 15%. I\u2019m happy to see that it now becomes clear that accessibility affects everything.<\/p>\n

[00:19:21] And the thing is, people approach or companies approach accessibility from a technical standpoint. Like, what do we have to change technically? But accessibility is about people. It\u2019s the same thing with all these solutions, the overlays, the whatever. They\u2019re trying to approach it as a digital problem. But this is a human-centric problem. This is how people use the web.<\/p>\n

[00:19:48] And now if you go back to SEO, one thing I learned a long time ago, I mean you can tell me about Google and other search engines, whatever you want, I don\u2019t care how technical you are, their biggest customer is the people who search on the web, not the ones who pay them to show their stuff. And so this is what search engines are looking for.<\/p>\n

[00:20:16] And now with AI, I\u2019m having a blast because I see people writing stuff like, oh, we have to tell the AI to understand our website. But you are leaving your fate in SEO in the hands of something that is going to interpret what you are doing there.<\/p>\n

[00:20:36] I\u2019m not going to name the names. It would be unfair because I\u2019m going to confront them with that before. But, there is a massive event that has a fantastic, big website. I find it hard to navigate, but that\u2019s a personal thing. And that is a JavaScript invested monster. And just for fun of it, I just asked AI, can you find this and this and this for me on that page? And AI was like, no, I can\u2019t. It\u2019s rendering JavaScript. I can\u2019t read this. What do you think that does to a screen reader or, because they\u2019re all using the same technology to read it.<\/p>\n

[00:21:10] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah. When I\u2019ve done podcast episodes about accessibility in the past, we\u2019ve often dwelled not on this side, in fact, I don\u2019t think we\u2019ve ever touched sort of like the SEO and traffic benefit of it. It\u2019s always been from the point of view of, what can you do? As an engineer, as a web developer, what can you do to go in in the weeds and fix things?<\/p>\n

[00:21:28] We are just going to brush that aside. You can find that information out. You know, go and talk to Anne, for example, if you want to learn how to do it. But the principle here is more about the SEO and therefore the traffic side of things, on the flip side of doing the work. So you imagine, the work is not done. It\u2019s poorer in terms of SEO and poorer in terms of reach, poorer in terms of search engine ranking, poorer in terms of revenue through your e-commerce platform or what have you. And then if you do do the work, all of those things increase incrementally.<\/p>\n

[00:21:59] And in some cases the data shows fairly substantially. And so I\u2019m just going to drill into each of those statistics one at a time because I feel it needs a little bit of like teasing out a little bit. So the first one is, well, there\u2019s many statistics, but the first of the three that I\u2019m going to mention, which you already have mentioned is organic traffic.<\/p>\n

[00:22:17] So again, this is making the assumption that the work has been done. You\u2019ve achieved the accessibility goals, presumably, which were many. You\u2019ve jumped through all those hoops and you\u2019ve got this benefit on the other side. And here\u2019s some possible benefits.<\/p>\n

[00:22:29] Organic traffic increased by an average of 23% as a site\u2019s accessibility compliance score increased. So can I ask you, is that one directly related to search engines then? Because it feels like it is. You know, you did the accessibility work and a byproduct of that is that you became more visible on search engines. Have I got that right?<\/p>\n

[00:22:50] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> Yeah, of course because if assistive technology can\u2019t read your site, the search engines probably can\u2019t either.<\/p>\n

[00:22:59] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah. It\u2019s kind of interesting though that you get that much of a boost. You\u2019d think if you had improved things, you might see, I don\u2019t know, a few percent here and there, but this figure of 23%. I mean imagine saying that to a marketing person, or the growth person inside of a company, 23% is possible. The word average in that sentence is bolded. So it\u2019s an average of 23%. So presumably there\u2019s a few that are lower and there\u2019s a few that are higher, but an average increase of 23%. So I don\u2019t ever use the phrase win-win.<\/p>\n

[00:23:32] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> It is win-win. It\u2019s win-win on sides. Maybe that\u2019s a little bit the dark side in me, but I go to business dinners, meetings, entrepreneur get togethers, blah, blah, blah. And then I always hear, at some point I hear people say, I don\u2019t get it. We are paying our SEO companies so much money, and we are not getting better results. And we have had a redesign on our website. And then I look at their website like, hmm, yeah, sure.<\/p>\n

[00:24:01] And then they will fix the site at some point, maybe they will improve the site, where the design goes, where the user flow goes. But still, it\u2019s not ranking better, and still it\u2019s not ranking better. And I wonder when SEO companies are going to become so smart that they\u2019re going to tell their customer, hey customer, stop writing click here everywhere.<\/p>\n

[00:24:25] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> That\u2019s a great, concrete example of what you\u2019re talking about, because I was going to drill into the next one because honestly, the next point does confuse me a little bit. Again, I\u2019ll link to it in the show notes, but point 4, I\u2019ll just read it here, is websites ranked for an average of 27% more organic keywords with a higher accessibility score.<\/p>\n

[00:24:45] Can you tease that out for me? Because I\u2019m genuinely puzzled by what that even means. I\u2019m not sure how there\u2019s this overlap between accessibility compliance, and the keywords and how the search engine would pick them up. So that\u2019s me being ignorant.<\/p>\n

[00:24:59] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> I would say, set the compliance story on fire. Torch it, and throw it away because compliance is what makes people do the bare minimum. And I think, I know they had to use this term in the report because they\u2019ve been checking it if the site is compliant. And then you will get lulled into a false sense of security when your score says, like Google does in Lighthouse, ooh, you are 97% accessible. And like, yeah, but the 3% that you say it\u2019s not, is what\u2019s blocking about 80% of a group of potential visitors that you are not having.<\/p>\n

[00:25:40] But again, it\u2019s about, in my opinion, it\u2019s about the way things have been coded and the way things have been written. For example, what happens is buttons that aren\u2019t buttons that are not really saying, how do you say it? It\u2019s the same thing. It\u2019s the read more thing again. I have to be careful that I don\u2019t go into the rabbit hole here too much. But it\u2019s the read more thing. It is text where links are actually named properly.<\/p>\n

[00:26:08] And just to give you an example, I see a lot of people who try to do affiliate marketing. Let\u2019s say food bloggers. They make humongous sites. They love using WordPress. I know that. There are tons of plugins also for food bloggers to play out the, what do you call that in English? The nutritional values of this and that. All right. And then these bloggers, people complain about it like, oh, why do they have to write their life stories and that of the spider in the corner on the ceiling before they give me the recipe? Well, that is because they\u2019re trying to get caught in the search engines, right?<\/p>\n

[00:26:44] And then they have all these links. Like, someone creates a great meal with a fantastic expensive pan and a pot, and I don\u2019t know what, and they have all these articles from Amazon. And all they have is click here, click here, click here, click here. And then imagine someone who is using that. I mean I love, I have a nice little, what do you call that, extension in Chrome? I\u2019ve been speaking German all morning. This is why my English is so rusty right now. I have this extension and it just, in a big article, if I want to know, oh, what was that tool that she was using again? I\u2019ll go get the link list with that little extension there, or I\u2019ll just run the screen reader and get the link list, because that\u2019s easy for me to do. And then all I see is click here, click here, click here. So I\u2019m not finding the link through that pan, and so I\u2019m not buying it through her link.<\/p>\n

[00:27:35] Affiliate websites could make so much more money if they would just do the right thing in their content. Let\u2019s forget about the code of the theme that they chose, just the content. If that is played out correctly, and it\u2019s not some JavaScript generated hoo-ha, which doesn\u2019t happen in WordPress Core, they would make a lot more money.<\/p>\n

[00:27:58] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Because I haven\u2019t really been following the SEO industry for a very long time, I really don\u2019t have much intelligence around what search engines these days look for. You know, back in the day when I was building websites, there was a, almost like a playbook that you could go through. And if you did these things, you could achieve reasonable results in SEO.<\/p>\n

[00:28:18] And that was the state of the internet 15 years ago when algorithms were less sophisticated, and people were just beginning to kind of get online and use things like Google all the time. But it sounds to me as if we\u2019ve got to a point with search engines, as if they\u2019re able to, I\u2019m maybe going to overstate this, it feels like the more human you have become as a website, the more likely Google will favour you.<\/p>\n

[00:28:48] I\u2019m not really encapsulating that very well, but what I mean is, if you put content on there, which is human readable. If you make it obvious where to click to do the thing, rather than stop it with keywords and things which, you know, is not really in the best intentions of humans, that\u2019s clearly done for the algorithm only, it does sound like you are saying that the search engines favour, I\u2019m doing air quotes here, humanity.<\/p>\n

[00:29:15] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> They always have. Let me circle back to what I said before. We, as the people who use search engines, and nowadays they\u2019re AI in whatever they do, we are the biggest customer for them. Because if we\u2019re not there to search, to use them, they can\u2019t sell their services to the people paying to be found.<\/p>\n

[00:29:37] I might be, how do you say that, unorthodox in this approach, but I\u2019ve seen it. I have a friend, Manuela van Prooijen, she\u2019s the owner of a company called Weblish. In the Netherlands she trains people in how to set up businesses with WordPress and how to build with WordPress. And you wouldn\u2019t expect it when someone is just focused on that, but she\u2019s got a very broad perspective of things. And she dove into SEO in a way that I\u2019ve never seen before. And some of the SEO experts that I know, and we know together, were like, why didn\u2019t we ever think of that? And it had to do with structured data. And of course, everything she builds is accessible.<\/p>\n

[00:30:24] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Okay, so I\u2019m going to pivot slightly. However, I think we\u2019ve made the case that if you are endeavouring to make your website more accessible, I think by reading that piece, you will understand that there are definite benefits in terms of traffic and search engine rankings and so on. So let\u2019s just take that one as a given.<\/p>\n

[00:30:43] And then I\u2019m going to move over to a piece which you yourself wrote, not that long ago actually. Almost exactly a year ago, March 4th, 2025. It\u2019s on your website, annebovelett.eu. It\u2019s called The E-commerce Industry\u2019s Billion Pound Mistake. And in here you make the argument, and you bind it to money, to actual dollar terms and things like that, which is quite interesting.<\/p>\n

[00:31:05] So I\u2019m wondering if you\u2019d just paint the numbers around what you were saying here, if you can remember. I know it\u2019s a year ago now that you wrote it. But broadly speaking, what was the economic case that you were making?<\/p>\n

[00:31:13] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> It\u2019s actually, this is based on a British report, actually. It\u2019s called the Click Away Pound Report. It was brought in 2019. And that actually measures how much revenue people left lying on the street by not making their shops, their online shops, accessible. And the economic case is, we say in Dutch, you thief your own wallet, if you\u2019re not doing it. And again, these are, this is data, these are numbers.<\/p>\n

[00:31:48] So in 2016, for example, the click away pound increased by 45%. Let me just throw around some numbers, right? So in 2016, the money that people left lying on the street by not making their eshops accessible was 11.75 billion. Billion, not million, billion pounds. In 2019, that was already up to 17 billion. Really, I don\u2019t know if they\u2019re going to do another Click Away Pound Report again at some point, but I think we\u2019re going to be shocked. Because since 2019, the state of the internet actually worsened because of all this technology. And it\u2019s getting worse because of all this vibe coding voodoo, where they\u2019re using AI that is trained on inaccessible code. But that\u2019s another thing.<\/p>\n

[00:32:45] So there\u2019s another article that I have. I think it is so much money that people leave lying on the street, this is larger than the Chinese economy, that amount. It\u2019s in an article I wrote about e-commerce in 2022, where I was criticising CMSs, including WooCommerce, who actually did a great job. Now WooCommerce Core is now accessible. And said, okay, if your system sucks, the people using your system are going to lose without being able to help it.<\/p>\n

[00:33:18] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> If you send me the link to that piece, I will obviously add that into the show notes.<\/p>\n

[00:33:22] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> It seems I\u2019m on the cold side of accessibility because that is something that forever stuck with me. Someone called me cold hearted, because I\u2019m talking about the commercial side of accessibility all the time. But, you know, there was a time, this is maybe a strange segway, but there was a time where I weighed way over a hundred kilos. I was so heavy. I had trouble moving, I was in pain, I was uncomfortable. And for me, buying clothes became an uncomfortable exercise. Going into these shops, especially these nice boutique shops, with their very small cabins, you know, trying to turn around and not being able to step into a pair of pants or whatever. Just uncomfortable.<\/p>\n

[00:34:13] But the most uncomfortable thing about it for me was that I got blatantly ignored by the ladies that were selling the clothes in the stores. And three years after that, I had lost about 37 kilos. And I came into that one store where it was very, very apparent that they really weren\u2019t interested in talking to me at all. I came in and they immediately jumped me, both of them, the shop owner and her assistant. And I got madder and madder and madder and madder.<\/p>\n

[00:34:49] And at some point I said, you know what? Keep your clothes, just tell me don\u2019t you remember me? Don\u2019t you know who I am? No, we don\u2019t remember you. And I was like, well, here\u2019s the picture. Oh yeah, I\u2019ve seen you before. And you know what, the fact, at that time I was thinking, maybe it\u2019s because you\u2019re too busy or you are, you know, I don\u2019t know. But the fact that you jumped me right now with the same amount of people in the place tells me something else.<\/p>\n

[00:35:15] Now, why am I telling this story? This is how a lot of people that need assistive technology feel, and also how older people feel on the web. I mean, I don\u2019t know about the UK, but in the Netherlands, you can\u2019t do your taxes without a couple of apps on a phone. Well, if you jump through a million hoops, maybe you can send it in on paper still, but it\u2019s almost impossible. If apps like that don\u2019t work correctly, you\u2019re putting people\u2019s fate in someone else\u2019s hand, because you\u2019re working with their tax number.<\/p>\n

[00:35:54] I don\u2019t know in the UK, in the Netherlands, your personal tax number, never ever give that to someone. Never. Your social security number, don\u2019t do it. And then you\u2019re like, maybe 60, 70-year-old, and you\u2019re right before that stage where the technology\u2019s getting too hard for you, but apps to do these things are too difficult.<\/p>\n

[00:36:17] There is a local tax office in the Netherlands that had a full accessibility redesign done by Level Level in Rotterdam. And for them, the support requests went down, I think by 30% or something. I couldn\u2019t find the case on their website anymore.<\/p>\n

[00:36:35] But this is because people are being empowered to do things by themselves. That\u2019s what they want. And for example, in Germany, there are statistics about that. This is an article that I actually published today that, I think it says like 90% of all German users will always try to first solve something by themselves, and if it doesn\u2019t work they\u2019ll walk away.<\/p>\n

[00:36:58] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> That\u2019s one of the curious things that come out of the article. The first part of this conversation was all about SEO and what have you. We didn\u2019t really talk much about the person experiencing the problem. It was more about search engines and maybe how you would technically fix things. But this is so interesting. In your piece, you, and I\u2019m just going to quote it because that\u2019s going to be the easiest way to get the information into the record.<\/p>\n

[00:37:20] And it says, a shocking 75% of disabled customers have willingly paid more for a product from an accessible website, rather than struggle with a cheaper inaccessible one. And that kind of sums up the whole thing really for me, that if you are faced with a struggle to do something, let\u2019s say, I dont know, you want to buy a widget and it\u2019s $100. The calculus that you are going through is, I could spend an hour and a half trying to get that $100 widget, or I could go to this other website and pay $120 for it and be done in three minutes. Well, that\u2019s obvious, I know which one I\u2019m going to do, which is really interesting.<\/p>\n

[00:38:02] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. And there\u2019s another thing. People are always like, oh, accessibility is only for the blind. No. The people that go forgotten in that, and I have to tell you, disabilities rarely come alone, right? I\u2019m just going to take myself as an example. I have ADHD on steroids. I\u2019m in the spectrum. I\u2019m old. I need two pairs of glasses, one for my computer, one for my regular stuff. I\u2019m starting to lose my hearing in certain regions. I am the target group. If I need to go and order, and I\u2019m B2B, right? I\u2019m a business.<\/p>\n

[00:38:41] I will order B2B because then I can deduct the VAT. And I have to buy hardware. And I always try to buy the best. I will go to a store, maybe, and it\u2019s B2B and I will go online. If I can\u2019t figure out their stuff, I\u2019m leaving. If I need to look at a manual, a video manual, that has background music while someone is talking, but there is no subtitles, I\u2019m gone. I can\u2019t follow it. My brain won\u2019t let me.<\/p>\n

[00:39:15] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah, I mean the analogy in my head is kind of, I don\u2019t know, you\u2019re going into a clothes shop or something like that and you need a new pair of shoes or something, and you discover that all the shoes are in a locked cupboard in a corner. And in order to get to the shoes, you need to ask a receptionist for the key. And then they go and find the key, and then they give you the wrong key and the key doesn\u2019t work. And then they don\u2019t point out where the box of shoes is, so you\u2019re completely confused.<\/p>\n

[00:39:36] That whole thing is just avoided by going to the next shop along the street where all the shoes are right there for you to pick up and try on and what have you. You\u2019ve made the journey easy, and it turns out that price isn\u2019t necessarily the prime mover here, which is really interesting. I find that statistic fascinating, that people will pay accordingly if they can get what they need out of it. I mean I know it sounds like common sense, but having it painted in those stark colours is.<\/p>\n

[00:40:04] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> Yeah, yeah. This is one of the things I did want to mention as well. I have the privilege of talking to Mark Weisbrod a lot from Greyd. You know him? He\u2019s the CEO of Greyd. I think he\u2019s unique, especially in the world of WordPress because he\u2019s looking at things solely from a business perspective. He\u2019s not distracted by technical issues or whatsoever. He will get it from there. He\u2019s someone who often says to me like, okay, I like the story now show me the data.<\/p>\n

[00:40:39] But then at some point, I remember it was before the European Accessibility Act was coming into effect, I think. So this, we\u2019re talking about this in 2023 or something. And then I said, I don\u2019t get it. Why is everybody so focused on the European Accessibility Act? Look at how much money they can make by leaving people their dignity. Because that\u2019s basically what it is by making your stuff accessible.<\/p>\n

[00:41:06] If you get past the stupid idea that if something is accessible, it can\u2019t look nice. I mean, go to github.com without being logged in, that\u2019s accessible. It\u2019s a wonderful website. And then I said, where is the common sense? Why, if I talk to the C-suite of a company in one of those business things, and I say, listen, if you would make this and this and this more accessible in your web shop, your turn over would go up by so many percent, why are they not like, we\u2019ve got to invest this money right now?<\/p>\n

[00:41:39] And then he said, no matter what, people will always think with their wallet today and tomorrow. They\u2019re not thinking about next week. Only the most visionary leaders in the industries think way more. And this is something I say now, because he said, he was telling me about they were selling, in a company he worked for, they were selling solar systems. And these systems would save the buyers so much money on the long run, but it was very hard to sell them because it was in the long run.<\/p>\n

[00:42:20] And if a CEO or a CFO, I mean I know it sounds offending, I don\u2019t mean it that way, but in large corporations it\u2019s to eat or to be eaten. Managers are always afraid of their managers kicking down on them and the others kicking up, and they\u2019re always trying to defend their own spot in the business. It\u2019s only in smaller companies that people can have more leverage. So there are always so many powers at play in a company that if you start talking to a company about, it\u2019s for the greater good of your company, it\u2019s the same argument as it\u2019s for the greater good of humanity.<\/p>\n

[00:42:59] And I\u2019ll just give you another number for example. Based on the Click Away Pound Report, and some other data that I have, I\u2019ve been working on building a calculator. You tell me which country your web shop is in, you tell me how much turnover you have per year and then that calculator is going to tell you how much potential revenue you are walking away from by not making it accessible. I did this for very, very big supermarket chain in Switzerland, and the outcome was you could make 0.94% more revenue. And then you\u2019re like, yeah, less than 1%. Yeah, sure. Ah, it\u2019s still 350 million Swiss Francs.<\/p>\n

[00:43:43] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> Yeah. Less than 1% but still that kind of money, wow.<\/p>\n

[00:43:47] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> Yes. And then you get this perspective thing. Because I\u2019m pretty sure the day that this knowledge seeps through to the unions of the employees of this company, the employees are going to go like, why do we have to save money, or why do we not get a raise where you don\u2019t take the opportunity to make that much more turnover? And then someone else with other interests in the company says, yeah, but the stakeholders, you know, or the investors, this is why this is not happening. I mean, we all think common sense is the greatest good in the world. People do not have common sense, period.<\/p>\n

[00:44:33] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> It\u2019s that sort of invisible layer to people who don\u2019t experience any of the accessibility problems that the industry is trying to tackle. For example, you\u2019re fully sighted, you can use your legs and walk about and use a mouse and use regular computer and use a regular screen and your ears are working fine and all those kind of things. All of that stuff is just sort of hidden from you, and so it just somehow doesn\u2019t drive itself to the front of your consciousness.<\/p>\n

[00:44:56] Which is why this is so interesting because, although you said you\u2019ve kind of been berated in the accessibility community for banging the gong about money all the time, it\u2019s a great way to cut through, isn\u2019t it? You can go to the CEO of a company and make the economic argument, I would imagine, much more readily than you can do with the moral argument.<\/p>\n

[00:45:16] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been thinking about this a lot, about writing up a profile for a position in companies that I don\u2019t think exists yet. Because normally, we call it the sheep with five legs in Dutch. It\u2019s very hard to find that sheep with five legs. If someone is an accessibility officer in a big company, they are being banged on for compliance. If someone is working on accessibility in a lower rank, they\u2019re getting overworked because people have so many expectations or they just don\u2019t do things.<\/p>\n

[00:45:52] It\u2019s always, this person is screaming in the desert like, hey, this is happening. I\u2019ve seen this happen, I was guiding a company with more than I think 13 or 14 development teams, over 85 people, and they didn\u2019t talk to each other. Design, didn\u2019t talk to development, development didn\u2019t talk to development in other areas, because that was how the company was structured.<\/p>\n

[00:46:18] And I think people need to be educated in two ways to have this position that doesn\u2019t exist yet. It\u2019s a position where you are able to kick the shins of the C-suite in a professional manner, of course, but also sit down with development, design, and content teams and make them communicate with each other in a way that works.<\/p>\n

[00:46:48] And for that, you have to understand these processes. And normally, I\u2019m absolutely not for people in managing positions that know the job that the people they\u2019re managing is doing, because they very often become that, how do you say that, the driver on the carriage running in front of the horses? You know, that\u2019s really dangerous. You shouldn\u2019t interfere into detail level too much.<\/p>\n

[00:47:15] But if you understand it on a detail level, from design content and development, you can get these people to talk to each other and help each other. Because there\u2019s absolutely nothing wrong with a developer that sees a design and is like, woah, that design, the way that is made, that\u2019s going to cause some accessibility issues. Those are issues.<\/p>\n

[00:47:39] And normally they will just, no, no, I was asked to develop this. I\u2019ll develop it. Instead, you need to raise a culture where people go to the designer and say, hey, I noticed this. What is your thought behind this? And they can\u2019t. And if they had a middle person for that where they could go to and say, look, I got this, I\u2019m not sure about it, then you would have a fantastic flow in a company to make things accessible.<\/p>\n

[00:48:06] Because this goes through so much more. So an article that I published today is about how much money you lose in support. It\u2019s the same thing. If a support, people doing support are not used to really listen and someone says, I\u2019m hard of hearing, or someone says, I have dyslexia. When you\u2019re saying, yeah, go read it, it\u2019s on that page on our website. If this person calls you because he couldn\u2019t find, or understand the page, and then you force this person into vulnerability by admitting that he or she has dyslexia. And that is going to leave a very bad taste in someone\u2019s mouth. And what happens? They\u2019re going to walk away. If you\u2019re not some government thing that everybody needs like, I don\u2019t know, taxes, because otherwise they\u2019ll come and rob you.<\/p>\n

[00:48:54] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> It is genuinely so interesting because a lot of the content that I\u2019ve made in the past has been definitely about the ways to fix your website. So here\u2019s the WCAG guidelines, go figure. This episode\u2019s been really entirely different.<\/p>\n

[00:49:07] So first of all, looking at Semrush, and the data. Just sort of painting the picture of the improvements that you can get in terms of traffic and visibility across search engines should you go down the accessibility route. But also then getting into the financial bit, which it sounds like is your thing.<\/p>\n

[00:49:27] So I think that\u2019s hopefully of interest to some people who perhaps have just always thought about accessibility as a, I\u2019m a web developer, there\u2019s another job that I\u2019ve got to do. Well, now you\u2019re kind of armoured with things that you could maybe even approach clients with. You know, you\u2019ve got a website, we haven\u2019t looked at it in a few years, you are always looking for ways to make more revenue out of your website. Well, look, I\u2019ve got this thing in my back pocket. This is a really credible way that we can do some tweaks. I know what I need to do. There\u2019s guidelines that I can follow. Let\u2019s do that and see if we can improve the revenue.<\/p>\n

[00:50:00] I think we\u2019ve probably covered that. And so with that in mind, Anne, just before we end, I\u2019m going to try and link to the piece that you mentioned. I\u2019ll certainly, anything that we\u2019ve mentioned in this podcast, I\u2019ll try and link to in the show notes on WP Tavern. Do you just want to tell us where we can find you? I did reference your website at one point during the podcast, but do you just want to give us that again, or maybe social networks or something like that where you hang out?<\/p>\n

[00:50:23] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> If you remember how to spell my name, just put it in Google, you\u2019ll find me everywhere. Okay. No. So it\u2019s Anne and then Bovelett, which is B from Bernard, B-O-V-E-L-E-T-T. You can find me on LinkedIn a lot. I\u2019m there a lot because I talk shop a lot.<\/p>\n

[00:50:44] Very active on X, Twitter. So that\u2019s where you find me. And don\u2019t be afraid to approach me. Just, if you send me LinkedIn DMs, it can take a while because sometimes I get too many, and then I\u2019m overwhelmed and, yeah. But the best thing is to send me an email. Just go to the contact page on my website.<\/p>\n

[00:51:06] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> All that it remains for me to do is to say, Anne Bovelett, thank you for chatting to me today. That was really interesting. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n

[00:51:12] Anne Bovelett:<\/strong> Thank you for having me and giving me the platform.<\/p>\n

[00:51:13] Nathan Wrigley:<\/strong> You are very welcome.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/details>\n

On the podcast today we have Anne Bovelett<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anne is a seasoned accessibility strategist with many years of experience in the tech industry. Her journey into accessible design began several years ago, and since then she\u2019s become a passionate advocate for making the web a more inclusive place, especially for WordPress users and developers. Drawing from her background in consulting, training, and her own experiences, Anne\u2019s work focuses on the intersection of accessibility, universal design, and tangible business outcomes.<\/p>\n

This episode explores accessibility, not just as a moral imperative, but as a strategic advantage for website owners and businesses. Anne explains how neglecting accessibility means you\u2019re leaving serious money on the table, referencing compelling research from a variety of credible sources. These studies reveal practical data. Compliant sites enjoy increases in organic traffic, a boost in keyword rankings, stronger authority, and significant financial opportunities, sometimes running into millions and even billions.<\/p>\n

Anne talks about why accessibility hasn\u2019t always been prioritised on the web, using analogies of the physical world and the history of web development. She gets into the technical side as well, but this conversation is specifically geared toward the real-world, bottom-line business benefits of accessible websites, reach more users, boost revenue, and even reduce support costs.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re a website owner, developer, or digital business leader who\u2019s ever wondered whether accessibility work is \u2018worth it\u2019 this episode is for you.<\/p>\n

Useful links<\/h2>\n

Semrush<\/a><\/p>\n

Accessibility Checker website<\/a><\/p>\n

\u200aManuela van Prooijen\u2019s Weblish<\/a><\/p>\n

The e-commerce industry\u2019s billion-pound mistake<\/a><\/p>\n

Click-Away Pound Report<\/a><\/p>\n

Anne on LinkedIn<\/a><\/p>\n

Anne on X<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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