How content strategists can create accessible content

Build the editorial infrastructure that accessibility needs to stick

Accessible content at enterprise scale requires enforceable editorial standards, integrated tooling, and clear governance, not aspirational PDFs that teams ignore under deadline pressure.

Accessibility guidelines only work when they're specific enough to follow and integrated enough that skipping them takes extra effort.

You need operational systems with decision frameworks creators can actually apply, templates with accessibility baked in, and governance that clarifies who decides what when standards don't fit.

Answer the questions creators ask

Your standards should cover the decisions that come up in every draft. For instance, alt text policy sounds simple until someone asks whether product thumbnails need descriptions or if "decorative" covers it.

Document these as decision trees, not principles:

• Descriptive alt text by image type: Decorative images get null alt text. Functional images describe the action. Complex visual content like charts needs detailed text descriptions.
• Readability by content type: Marketing pages aim for 8th-grade level. Technical docs go higher. Support articles lower.
• Inclusive language specifics: Ban ableist metaphors like "blind spot" or "crippled by debt." Provide alternatives.
• Component patterns: Build templates for accessible tables, forms, and other structures, so creators aren't researching ARIA every time.

When your team has concrete examples for each scenario, they stop making it up as they go.

Build frameworks for judgment calls

Some decisions aren't binary. Your team needs guidance based on content context:

These frameworks eliminate the "ask three people, get five opinions" problem that stalls content production.

Make accessibility automatic, not optional

When accessibility lives in templates, it happens by default. Your blog template should require alt text fields. Video uploads should require caption files before being published.

Define "done" with specific WCAG criteria:

• Images have alternative text (1.1.1)
• Headings follow logical order (1.3.1)
• Color isn't the only information conveyor (1.4.1)

Also, include accessibility features for interactive elements like forms and buttons.

Set governance and package for use

Assign clear ownership:

• Content lead handles readability and language
• Design system team owns component patterns.
• Accessibility specialist approves exceptions.

Create an exception process that logs deviations and spots patterns.

Package standards as tools people truly use: a one-page checklist for creators, Jira-ready acceptance criteria for PMs, and a measurement plan tracking which success criteria cause the most failures.

Build your accessibility tech stack around integration and enforcement

Accessibility tools that sit outside your workflow get ignored. Tools that can't enforce accessibility standards become expensive reporting dashboards that track accessibility issues nobody acts on.

The right stack catches problems during creation, enforces standards automatically, and proves ROI with data leadership actually cares about.

Require CMS and workflow integration

If your accessibility tool doesn't plug into where content gets created, it's a post-mortem system. You need pre-publish checks that flag issues while drafts are still editable, not after content goes live.

Look for tools that integrate directly with your CMS through plugins or extensions, so checks run where people actually work. Platforms like Siteimprove.ai can scan pages in WordPress, Drupal, and other major CMSs to catch missing alt text or broken heading hierarchies before anyone hits publish.

Task handoff to project management tools like Jira or Workfront means accessibility fixes flow into existing workflows instead of creating parallel tracks. With SSO and role-based access control, writers see readability and structure problems, designers see contrast issues, and each team gets accessibility issues in their own area flagged automatically.

Enforce standards, don't just report violations

Reporting tools tell you what's broken. Enforcement tools prevent broken content from shipping. There's a difference, and it matters when deadlines hit.

Your accessibility platform should let you set policy rules for mandatory fields and patterns — for example, requiring alt text on all images, enforcing proper heading hierarchy, and flagging problematic link text patterns like “click here.” Platforms like Siteimprove.ai support this kind of rule-based enforcement.

These rules get monitored and trended over time, so you can see compliance improving (or slipping). Ideally, automated checks can even gate the publishing process, so non-compliant content doesn’t go live until someone fixes it or logs an approved exception.

Track analytics that connect to business outcomes

Leadership doesn't care about WCAG success criteria counts. They care about risk reduction, SEO performance, and whether your accessibility investment is paying off.

Your stack should provide:

These metrics prove web accessibility investment pays off beyond avoiding accessibility laws violations.

Accessibility platforms like Siteimprove.ai can track these trends and map page-level changes to releases or content tickets, so you can trace which updates broke accessibility and which fixes improved scores.

Consider total cost and adoption friction

The best tool is worthless if your team won't use it or if licensing costs balloon as you scale. Look for platforms with central administration that lets you set standards once and inherit them across sites or business units.

Low-friction adoption matters too. Browser extensions and CMS plugins mean creators get accessibility feedback without leaving their existing tools. Enterprise platforms like Siteimprove.ai typically offer this kind of central admin plus in-context feedback, so standards cascade automatically instead of being reinvented team by team.

When your tech stack acts as the system of record for accessibility and content quality:

• Editorial rules convert into enforceable checks
• CMS integrations shift problems left to pre-publish
• Dashboards give you KPI-grade evidence for quarterly reviews

Design marketing strategies that reach audiences you're currently missing

Accessible content expands your addressable market by reaching the 16% of people with disabilities that your competitors accidentally ignore.

Inclusive marketing strategies build web accessibility into digital content distribution from the start (social, email, SEO) and measure success by engagement and conversion rates across diverse audiences, not compliance checklists nobody cares about.

Make your distribution channels work for everyone

Captions on social videos help people watching on mute (most mobile users), improve SEO because platforms can index the text, and make content usable for members of the deaf community. Three benefits from one fix.

Look at how accessibility improves each channel:

• Social media: Alt text on images improves platform search. Captions increase watch time. CamelCase hashtags (#AccessibleContent not #accessiblecontent) help screen readers parse them.
• Email: Semantic HTML helps email clients render properly. Plain text alternatives ensure messages reach people who disable images. Descriptive link text beats "click here" for usability and deliverability.
• SEO: Proper heading hierarchy helps search engines parse structure. Alt text contributes to image search rankings. Transcripts make video content indexable and open new traffic sources.

The pattern? Accessibility features fix the core user experience and help people using assistive technology. Small changes, measurable impact. Everyone benefits.

Build formats for different consumption modes

Different people consume content differently based on disability, device, context, and preference. Marketing that offers multiple formats of digital content captures a wider audience competitors miss.

Take your highest-value content and create accessible alternatives.

• Long-form guides become audio versions for commuters.
• Webinars get edited transcripts for people who prefer reading and those in open offices who can't play audio.
• Complex charts include text descriptions for screen reader users and executive summaries for time-pressed decision makers.

This pays off beyond accessibility. A webinar with a solid transcript becomes 10 blog posts, an email series, and social snippets. More distribution leverage from the same core content.

Measure what inclusive marketing delivers

Skip the compliance metrics. Track business outcomes:

Compare accessible content against non-accessible versions. Do pages with proper alt text rank better? Usually yes. Do videos with captions have higher completion? They do. Does email with semantic HTML get better click-through? Often.

When you measure inclusive marketing by conversions instead of compliance scores, you build the case for expanding accessibility investment.

Make accessibility operational, not aspirational

Accessible content drives better SEO, broader reach, and compliance with accessibility laws, and fewer emergency retrofits — but only when accessibility lives in your systems, not your intentions.

The teams that win integrate accessibility into editorial standards, tooling, and measurement from the start. They see real business outcomes. Teams that treat it as a separate compliance track see endless audit cycles and minimal progress.

Accessibility works when it's built into how content gets made, not tacked on after it’s published.

Pick one area where you're bleeding the most:

• Inconsistent standards across teams? Build decision frameworks that help content creators avoid common accessibility issues and package them as one-page checklists people actually reference.
• Catching problems too late? Get accessibility checks into your CMS so they happen during drafts.
• Can't prove ROI? Track engagement and conversions for accessible content versus the stuff missing alt text and captions, then show your boss the numbers.

Fix one thing systematically. Measure what changed. Move to the next problem. That beats "comprehensive accessibility roadmaps" that sit in slide decks for six months.

Ready to build accessibility into your content workflow? Request a demo to see how Siteimprove.ai helps content teams embed accessibility into their standards, tooling, and measurement — instead of treating it as last-minute cleanup.