Episode 29:  In this episode, Jim Ray sits down with digital marketing expert Bill Reynolds to break down the growing importance of ADA website compliance and the WCAG 2.1 guidelines. They discuss how new regulations impact businesses, especially those receiving government funding, and outline key deadlines for 2026 and 2027. Bill explains how accessibility goes beyond basic features, requiring structural and technical adjustments to ensure all users can navigate a website. The conversation highlights common compliance gaps, including PDFs, images, and user interface elements. They also explore the risks of non-compliance, including potential fines and legal exposure. Bill shares practical solutions, including ongoing monitoring and third-party validation tools to maintain compliance. Jim emphasizes the importance of proactive action rather than waiting until deadlines approach. The episode ultimately encourages business owners to treat accessibility as both a legal requirement and an opportunity to better serve their audiences.

Jim Ray:

Welcome to Grow for It. It’s a podcast for small business owners, managers, and professionals. The goal is to give me a chance to work with the space between your ears on your mindset to help you focus on the things that really matter to your success. I want to enable you to concentrate on pursuing your vision, setting meaningful goals, and engaging in the day-to-day activities that will have the biggest impact.

Thanks for tuning in. I want to go ahead and introduce a friend of mine. This is Bill Reynolds. He is the founder and president of Element502. They’re a digital marketing agency here in Louisville, although they work with clients all across the country, including several of mine and my website as well. Bill, thanks for coming in.

Bill Reynolds:

Hey, thanks for having me.

Jim Ray:

Well, I tell you what, a while back I got a flyer or saw some kind of information about a new ADA compliance issue that popped up that I knew was going to affect my clients, and you’re kind of my go-to guy on this kind of stuff. So I asked you to come in and we wanted to talk about this. Back in 2024, the DOJ really kind of finalized though the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 2.0, and this is Level AA, so it was like double secret probation stuff we’re dealing with.

Anyway, the biggest issue is right now a lot of people are exposed due to ADA non-compliance issues that potentially can lead to some serious fines coming up. But there are two different timeframes that we’re going to be worrying about right now, the 2026 version, and then we’ll talk a little bit more about the 2027, which is going to bring in people like me as a consultant, more service-based type professions in particular, a lot of law firms are eligible for this issue. So Bill, why don’t we back up a little bit and kind of just talk about what is this Web Content Accessibility Guideline issue? Why is it here?

Bill Reynolds:

Sure. And the acronym is WCAG, so if you hear me say it, that’s the very short term. Basically what the government came out with their guidelines was that your website needs to be ADA compliant and accessible just like your brick and mortar. So when you go to a new building, it’s got ramps, it’s got handicap accessible bathrooms, it’s got counter height. There’s all kinds of things about width of different doorways of aisleways, all these things. That’s the accessibility so that everyone can access your building. Now, in older buildings, there’s always a grandfather and there’s some rules around it because again, it’s not saying it’s okay to make it inaccessible, but there’s also a burden of cost, a burden of things. And so the government did the same thing for websites, and so they said, Hey, your website needs to be compliant. And you mentioned it, the 2026, it’s April of 2026 is the deadline for anybody who basically, the simplest way is if you get money from the government, you need to be compliant. So that’s going to be a lot of your healthcare, especially whenever you get Medicare, Medicaid, any of these government assistance programs that are in there. If you’re housing and you get government assistance for housing and authority, if you are a school, municipality, public parks, any of these things, those all are supposed to be because they want to make sure that your website is accessible and easy to use just like your brick and mortar would be for any of your customers.

Jim Ray:

When you and I go to a website, I mean obviously we can see what’s on the screen. We can dink around, we can click different things. We can fill out forms, but somebody that has some disabilities has some other challenges, may not be able to read it, may not be able to hear different things that are on there. So again, the ADA compliance issue is a great thing. I mean, it’s really going to open up the web to a lot of people who up to now have struggled to some point. The good news is this is just one more layer that allows us to make sure that even structurally, it’s not just the overlays that you have to worry about. This is something that actually gets into the coding and the structure, which is again, why I always use you as my go-to guide and say, Hey Bill, what are we dealing with here?

Bill Reynolds:

Yes. And because a lot of times you’ll see, you’ll go to a website and people just think like, oh, well it’s for sight-impaired people, so they’re going to use a screen reader. Well, that’s just one of a whole litany of different disabilities as defined by the Department of Justice, as defined in this WCAG. One of them I always point out is even ADHD is covered in this WCAG. And so focus banners, all these things have to be in there. And it’s not just the website itself, it’s any content that you make available. So if you have PDF downloads, those have to be accessible by a screen reader and different things. And a lot of times the built-in print to PDF function, that’s in a lot of our computers, whether it’s on MAC or PC, where you can print as a PDF, it technically creates a PDF, but that PDF is not ADA compliant. It has too much extra information on it. There’s some cleanup that has to happen in there for it to truly be compliant. And any piece of content that you serve from your website is covered just as much as the website. As far as this WCAG 2.0 compliance issue.

Jim Ray:

As I was reading through some of this, they were even talking about the images on the website. From an SEO standpoint, for years we’ve used data that kind of tells the internet, Hey, this is what this picture is. But a lot of people don’t do that. So that alt image text, a lot of people still don’t do that, but that is now being enforced under this compliance issue. So these are not simple fixes. I mean, they’re not, oh my gosh, my website is completely wrong, but there are some things now that we need to as a society move forward to. And now the DOJ is going to be coming in saying, yeah, we’re going to help you with that compliance issue and we’re going to back it up with some fines.

Bill Reynolds:

Well, yeah, and I mean it goes to color contrast, layout, any kind of movement that’s on your website or sound, those have to be able to be turned off, especially whenever we look for any kind of flashing or anything like that that turns into some of our compliance over flashing images, those kinds of things. All of these things are covered. And like you said, it’s nothing that means that you usually, you don’t have to tear the site down completely and rebuild depends on how old the technology is because some of these things we can go in behind it.  It’s just kind of like digging a basement in the house. It’s already there. You can do it.

Jim Ray:

Okay, it’s doable, but it’s probably not something you as an individual want to take on yourself. There are so many different layers and aspects to this.  Bill, you have a service. And that’s another reason when I called you up to say, Hey, we share some clients together. And I said, are any of our clients going to be affected? And most importantly, it’s my website going to be affected. And you said, actually, we already have a plan together for this. And that’s where you explained to me what your capabilities are and I wanted to share that with the audience today. Would you walk us through what that is?

Bill Reynolds:

Sure. And I tell everybody the service we use is accessiBe. And if you want to try to go and do it yourself, you’re welcome to. I don’t hide any of it. What accessiBe does is it puts a script on your website. If you go to my website or any of the websites we protected, it’s a little button down in the bottom right-hand corner. It’s a little accessiBe guy. It’s like a little stick figure guy. You can click on it. Inside of there, there’s a whole lot of options on the website to be able to change it to where it’s accessible for you. But the biggest thing that’s important in there is the statement. It’s the security statement at the top. Every month accessiBe scans the website and gives us a compliance statement that says that this website has been marked compliant, WCAG 2.1, it’s a third party that does that verification for us, and they give you a certificate that’s valid for every month.

Now we scan it twice a month so that if there’s any changes, and so this helps with any kind of content changes, new pages, new posts, maybe you’re even putting up new PDFs, those kinds of things, it will catch those and flag those. It doesn’t put that on the front of the website where it says, Hey, our website’s compliant except for this. That’s not what we put out there. But it does allow us to be able to be notified to be able to go in and make updates or changes to your site. Because once we put the script on, it runs for a couple of days on a new install, it runs for about five days. It’s crawling through all the site. It’s watching user interaction. It’s doing all these things.

At the end of that week, we log back in, it tells us, okay, here’s what I can fix on my own, and this is it being the AI. Here’s what it can fix on its own. Here’s where it’s going to need people, and then here’s our verification that we have to have. So when we do that, now you’re getting compliance 24/7. You’ve got a third party that’s going to put their seal of approval on it and go. Now I’ve ran into, just as a heads up, and I tell you, accessiBe, because accessiBe is a company that we’re partnered with. I use them all the time. I would highly recommend them, especially even if you’re another company that’s going to go out and do the exact same service, please use theirs because there are a lot of plugins or different add-ons that you can get off the web that will say they’re “accessible.” It is for accessibility for this. Well, that’s just like me building my own ramp to get into my house and say, yeah, I’m accessible now.

Well, that’s not how that works. There’s code. There’s all these different rules to it. It’s not just is there a ramp, it’s how long, what’s the rise? All these different things come into there, and that’s just for a handicap ramp and you’re supposed to get another certificate of inspection to be able to say that it was built correctly. So I can do it myself, but that doesn’t make me compliant.

And so I warned that because, and we did this the other day. I had a friend that had their website redone and she was talking to me and I was talking about this very thing. She said, oh, no, no, no, I remember you talking about that before. So I had my new company make sure that my site was compliant. And I said, well, let’s just run it through my check. And so I ran it through the check. Big red X site is not compliant because their widget, they had just had very basic things on it.

But it’s almost like saying that you speak Spanish, but really all is how to say, my name is Jim and have a good day. Well, you’re not a Spanish speaker or just running it through Google Translate. That’s not a true experience. And so the same kind of thing whenever we’re talking about a compliance, it’s black and white. The judge is not, there’s not a judge here to go, well, you tried really hard, Jim. It’s a pass fail. That’s it. And so there is no gray, there’s nothing there.

Jim Ray:

Well, and Bill, I’m glad you said that because there are a lot of us who actually contribute content to client websites. So if you’ve got a vendor who’s actually uploading something to your website, you don’t know if they suddenly have caused an issue for you that you’re not even aware of. Because again, every new piece that goes up has to pass this inspection, if you will, this compliance-proofing to make sure that hey, it qualifies that it meets the standards. So if you’re someone like me, I want to go to my clients first of all and say, Hey, let’s run a check. Let’s see where we are and what we need to deal with. And I’m assuming it’s going to flag individual issues that we might need to address. Or does it just say, no, the website’s not compliant. Good luck.

Bill Reynolds:

It does. It does give individual. Now, full transparency, because I’m a partner vendor, my report has more detail on it than just, if you go to their site, you get the report, but it still tells you, here are all the different pieces that are there. And the other reason I recommend accessiBe is because I’ve seen this too. If you scan your website and your website is not compliant, accessiBe is going to send you a note and say, Hey, you should probably get this compliant. And here’s our stuff. Honestly, when I first got into this several years ago, we did a search, found a vendor ran the site that had asked us for help with through their check. I get a phone call from their salesperson. I’m expecting to.  I said, I’m not really sure. We’re still looking this out.

And Jim, the guy, actually, this is a paraphrase, but it’s really close. Wow. So you’re not going to go with us. It sure would be a shame if somebody was to report your website as being noncompliant. And I said, well, hold on just a second. I asked him. I’m like, are you actually telling me you’re trying to do a shakedown? If I don’t sign your contract today, you’re going to report us? Oh, no, no. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying it sure would be a shame if that was to happen.

That’s not these accessiBe people. They are truly a diverse population of folks with all kinds of different abilities across the board that believe in making the internet accessible for everybody. So it’s a mission and a passion for them, not just a check and a compliance.

Jim Ray:

Fantastic. Well, Bill, let me ask you this. If somebody’s watching this or listening to this, if they’re listening to the audio version, what is the best way for them to engage with Element502 and have you all at least run this screen?

Bill Reynolds:

Oh, sure. So the PDFs that are on the table here that we have, we’ll make those available through the podcast. You’ll be able to get ahold of those. It’s got our contact information on there. Reach out to me at Element502.com. There’s a Contact Us. Just tell us that you need to have an ADA compliance check.

There’s no cost to that. I’ll run it, I’ll put it through. Or you can go to accessiBe and go through theirs. They will gate all that content and make sure that you sign up to be able to get an email and some other emails from them. But that’s their first part. And then from that, then we can say, okay, here’s where you’re looking at and where you’re going. Our costing on this, it’s pretty affordable, Jim. We start at $500 just to do the install of the widget…

Jim Ray:

But the scan’s free?

Bill Reynolds:

The scan is free, correct. But if you say, Hey, I want to use you. It’s $500 for us to install the widget to get it on there, we run it through. Barring anything that’s major that would require a big rebuild of part of the site will give you that list back. That’s usually covered under the $500 that’s in there because a lot of it, the widget’s going to be able to do. And in an ongoing basis, we’re going to be able to quickly go in because we build websites all day. That’s something that we can do better. And then we do $50 a month for the monitoring. And with that $50, that’s us keeping your license alive with accessiBe. It’s running the compliance. We’re watching for the reports coming out because it tells us if anything falls out of compliance and then be able to alert you and say, Hey, here’s something that we can do or we need to charge for this. But all that’s agreed upon upfront. We don’t like surprise bills, anything like that. And this is not a shakedown from us to try to get more money or to back channel anything. It’s just simply as the rules change, as this compliance changes, as all these things are there and more and more content shows up, we’re just trying to keep you safe.

Jim Ray:

And guys, I’ve worked with Bill for many years. Again, he does my website, but I’ve brought in numerous clients that I’ve worked with over the years. I’ve been doing this for about 20 years, and Bill’s team is very easy to work with. I’m not saying he’s the only one out there that can do it, but I mean, I trust Bill because I’ve used him over and over and over, and he already had a program like this up and going when I just barely learned about the idea and said, Hey Bill, should we have a conversation for our clients? And they were already on it. I mean very, very professionally run organization. Bill, congratulations. And it’s just one of those things that it’s not just a nice to do. This is a need to do.

Again, the DOJ is putting fines and they are going to be putting some other enforcement behind this. So you really want to be careful. So again, we are talking about the WCAG 2.1, Level AA issue that’s out there in 2026, right now there’s already an issue.

But 2027, that’s when the law firms, consultants and some others are really going to need to have this done. And it’s not something you want to do right at the deadline because again, it may take a little time to get you in that green zone, if you will. So the sooner the better to have this conversation.

Bill Reynolds:

Yeah, the April 2027 deadline, that’s really going to be more of a spotlight than a deadline. Technically right now everybody’s supposed to be compliant. There’s still just a lot of grace to be able to work through and to be ready. So that April of 2027 though, that’s kind of where the government said, Hey, you’ve had a year and a half.

Jim Ray:

We’ve gone far enough.

Bill Reynolds:

Yeah, we gave you a year and a half to figure this out. So your poor planning is not our problem now.

Jim Ray:

Exactly. Exactly. And again, this is something that a lot of us aren’t necessarily thinking about. Maybe we’ve paid somebody to build a website, we assume, hey, everything’s working fine, not having an issue. But because we don’t maybe necessarily deal with these disability issues and these compliance issues because maybe we don’t have a visual problem or maybe we don’t have a hearing problem, other people are not the same as us. And so, we want to be really careful to make sure that they can take full advantage of not only the internet, but also the services that we may offer.

So again, this is a really good opportunity and I want to thank you, Bill. I want to thank you for your time and your company’s attention to this. Again, you guys are always right on that edge leading the way, and I really enjoy partnering with you. So, thanks for your time.

Bill Reynolds:

Thanks Jim. Appreciate it.

Jim Ray:

Friends, if you have any other questions or you need some follow up, feel free to check my website out at JimRayConsultingServices.com. And I look forward to talking to you soon. Thanks for your time.

Helpful Resources

Here are 2 resources provided by Element502 to help you. The first is for Municipal Leaders in 2026. The second is for Lawyers, Healthcare Professionals and others in Finance, Tax and Accounting for 2027.

Tags: accessiBe, ADA website compliance, digital marketing compliance, Podcast, WCAG 2.1 guidelines, website accessibility standards