Manufacturer’s Websites & How to Mitigate Digital Risks

February 25, 2021
7:50 pm

As a manufacturer, it is always important to ensure your website, whether you do eCommerce or not, is on top of compliance prerequisites at all times. This will not only make it more accessible to all users, drive more quality traffic to it, solidify your business’ reputation and keep you out of trouble with government agencies. This will, without doubt, fast-track your online revenue generation efforts and build trust and loyalty among your customers. Generally speaking, there are three major factors mission critical when designing or revising your site. This includes complete compliance with ADA guidelines, SSL certification and lastly your site’s load time.

Make sure your website is compliant with the American with Disabilities Act (ADA)

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) was incepted in the early 1990s and mostly governs accessibility issues for people living with disabilities in America. Although websites aren’t mentioned, iTitle III section of ADA has been repeatedly applied by US law courts to implicate accessibility in websites. For your manufacturer site to be deemed ADA-compliant, it will have to be equally accessible to all users. Accessibility in this consideration equates to two main stipulations. The first is ensuring your eCommerce website’s content and functionalities can be effortlessly and conveniently accessed by persons with disabilities. Secondly, making sure it integrates the features, which are regarded as standard when it comes to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). So, you should always go out of your way to guarantee all users, not excluding those with disabilities, may access full and equal usage of your site. This includes access to all content, with stress-free navigation and full engagement with all its various elements.

Since the passage of the ADA, American courts of law and the Department of Justice have cited the WCAG success criteria as a standard in terms of evaluating just how accessible websites are. This criterion consists of a grand total of 38 guidelines. While it might be hard to adhere to all these prerequisites, as a manufacturer, it is advisable to do all you can to comply with as many as you possibly can. Before doing anything else, start by meticulously answering the following questions: What is your website’s main purpose? And when visitors get to it, what are the most common paths they follow? Essentially, you will have to ensure the key purpose of your manufacturer site and the common paths visitors take are devoid of all barriers which might curtail access or even give rise to frustrations among users. To mitigate the risk of being sued for ADA non-compliance, you should do the following.

To begin with, it is highly recommended to implement ADA legal best practices. This can include setting up a web accessibility policy page, creating a web accessibility statement, having an accessibility coordinator, enlisting the services of an independent consultant, and welcoming feedback from users. Also, it is important not to settle for instant fixes like automated solutions (overlays, plugins, widgets or apps) that, in more cases than not, will only heighten the risk of infringing on ADA. True web accessibility necessitates a time investment and a manual effort. At the same time, steer clear of automated web accessibility scans and audits which can, at best, only give you a quarter of the details on your eCommerce site’s accessibility status. Even if you are operating on a budget (no more than $5,000), there are still many reputable firms that cater to enterprise customers. In a nutshell, to make your manufacturer site ADA- compliant, make sure:

All images have alt-text descriptions
Your site may be fully used via keyboards
Its forms are programmed to ensure field labels can be read by screen readers
Its forms are programmed to ensure field labels can be read by screen readers
Include description anchor texts for links
Ensure all headings are structured and properly nested

Make sure your website has Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certification

Over the recent years, SSL certification has become mandatory, particularly for those websites which allow users to make online business transactions. First of all, SSL certificates are well noted for encrypting all data processed by websites including the users’ confidential data. This goes a long way in making it almost impossible for hackers or persons with malicious intent to access such data. On the other hand, having an SSL certificate will furnish your eCommerce site with invaluable authentication. The moment you prove your identity through the validation process, your website will receive trust indicators, and when users see them, they’ll be more willing to do business with you.

Additionally, this verification will ensure imposters cannot create fake websites that pretend to be that of your company. This means an SSL certification will not only drive users to your site, but also prevent them from falling victims to fraudsters and boost your credibility. On the flipside, SSL certificates will immensely boost client trust. Besides encryption and authentication, an SSL certificate can prove to be a godsend from a customer trust standpoint. The easy-to-identify signs of SSL certificates notify users all data they send will be effectively protected, and this can give them peace of mind when making transactions through your site. It will also prompt them to revisit your eCommerce website, again and again, and ultimately become loyal customers. Other prominent boons of SSL certification include better search engine rankings and compliance with PCI/DSS guidelines.

Make sure your website loads quickly even if not doing eCommerce

A website’s loading speed is no longer just an issue of preference, but can be one of the keys to your manufacturer site’s overall success. The longer it takes for your webpages to load, the higher its bounce rates will be. In turn, higher bounce rates always equate to poor Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) rankings since search engines will interpret that users don’t find the content in your website relevant or useful. Ideally, website loading speed may be likened to a continuum in which the quicker websites obtain more advantages over slow ones and each second lost can make a big difference in performance.

Typically, you will want your eCommerce website to load in no more than two seconds as 40% of consumers won’t hesitate to abandon a site that takes more than three seconds to load. Before you can improve your website’s speed, start by testing it. Tools such as Google’s Pagespeed Insights may come in very handy. Also, make sure you determine what kind of experience users expect from your manufacturer site. Among other factors, this can include simplistic navigation, mobile-friendliness, cross-browser and cross-platform compatibility, and direct delivery of relevant and credible data with minimal keystrokes. Some other things you may do to improve your eCommerce website’s speed are optimizing its image files, minify its coding, optimize your databases if using CMS applications and make use of a content delivery network (CDN). The last of which are geographically-distributed server networks which work collectively to deliver your site’s content quicker and ensure you don’t depend on just one server.