2020 has been a difficult year for many of us and we’re looking forward to a better 2021. During the year we’ve tried to bring you some useful articles on this blog that explore website and content management, accessibility and help you to get the best out of Sitemorse. We publish up to four articles per week so that’s a lot of reading! Here’s a round-up of some our best and most popular articles from this year.

January  

Planning for 2020: Creating a strategy

January is a time when some teams think about their plans for the year or doing things differently, so we kicked off a four-part series looking at some of the themes that teams need to consider. In this first part we explored creating a digital marketing strategy, the process and the data inputs you need. In other posts in the series we covered measurement,  making the business case, and making it all happen.

February

Who is accountable for the accessibility of your website?

One of the reasons that website accessibility does not get the focus it needs is because there is not always senior management level accountability for it. In February we took a deep dive into the theme of accountability, looking at why it is important and what it actually entails. In a follow-up post we also looked at how digital communication teams can support an accountable stakeholder, and the elements that need to be in place.

March

Ten key statistics about web accessibility

If you ever need to persuade anybody about the importance and benefits of a properly accessible website, it’s worth taking a look at some of the numbers relating to accessibility. In what proved to be our most popular article of the year, we covered ten key statistics that show the extent of disability, the advantages of investing in accessibility and why there is still a lot of work to do. You can use this to start conversations with stakeholders or to support a business case.

April

Eight tips to improve digital accessibility for employees during the coronavirus crisis

It is difficult not to talk about 2020 without referencing the COVID-19 pandemic. One thing the coronavirus crisis has underlined is the importance of accessibility, ensuring that everybody can access information and digital services that help us all to stay safe. In the world of work, accessibility was also important in ensuring everybody could maintain business continuity. In this post we explored eight key tips to help improve accessibility for your workforce.

May

15 useful resources to help you improve web accessibility

Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to start with accessibility, particularly if you’re not so familiar with the topic. The good news is that there is lots of good content out there to help you. Back in May in response to customer requests,  we created a list of useful resources to get you started. From WCAG and GDS resources to items on this very blog, this post is a good starting point to get up to speed on improving web accessibility.

June

Ensuring the digital first agenda doesn’t discriminate – the law

Ensuring your website is accessible is a legal issue, but there still seems to be ongoing confusion. In one of our most popular posts of the year we provided a headline view of the how accessibility is both a compliance issue but also increasingly critical across a range of corporate initiatives, touching upon the future of work and emerging areas of risk. We also link to our detailed commentary on Accessibility and the Equality Act.

July

Why my INDEX score has gone down: avoiding website decline

The Sitemorse platform’s quarterly INDEX benchmarking service that scores and ranks website performance across various different industry sectors is one of our most popular features. Many website teams track their progress quarter by quarter, but sometimes it’s possible for your score to decrease. In July we visited a question we continually get asked: why has my score gone down? In this thoughtful article we look at the different types of decline, what it means, and what you can do about it.

August

Developer Corner- the difference between Manager, Content Editor and Developer Priorities

Every week Helen Grimbly, Sitemorse’s Support Lead, provides useful tips and updates on how to get the most out of the platform, answering frequently asked questions, and also providing product news. The weekly posts are essential for Sitemorse customers but are also useful for anybody wanting to investigate the deeper capabilities of the Sitemorse platform. Although we could have picked any of Helen’s weekly updates, this interesting post looks at how Sitemorse’s role-based prioritisation is targeted to website mangers, content editors and developers, ensuring the right roles are notified of the priority fixes they need to attend to.  

September

Six things we learned from improving accessibility at Chesterfield Borough Council

One of our favourite client success stories is from Chesterfield Borough Council who managed to climb a spectacular 393 places in our quarterly INDEX for UK local authorities; this was done in just three months, on the back of a brilliantly executed project to improve website accessibility. What’s so impressive is that this was done with a small team of two, just putting aside one day a week to work on it. This post explores some of the key takeaways from the team’s work, showcasing true digital rockstars in action.

October

Managing the PDFs on your website: what you need to do and why

Continuous improvement and investment on the back of customer feedback is one of the reasons why the Sitemorse platform is so effective; we also make sure any changes are well-thought-through with input from our customer base. During October we launched three new capabilities in the Sitemorse platform and wrote articles about the business problems they solve. This particular article explores the challenges of managing PDFs on your website, for example, in ensuring accessibility, and it also explains how Sitemorse’s new reporting capability provides an audit of all your PDFs, related links and other pertinent information. The other two articles which focused on new Sitemorse capabilities also gave practical guidance on how to improve the readability of your website content and also manage colour contrast issues.

November

Q4 2020 Local Government INDEX results

Throughout the year our quarterly INDEX results have revealed the state of web quality and accessibility across different sectors, including different areas of the UK public sector. The results have always been eagerly awaited, but the Q4 public sector results for the UK took on an extra significance as they revealed the extent of compliance with new legal requirements for public sector websites to be accessible. This post focuses on the results for local authorities in the UK – you may be surprised (or not) by how much work there is still to do!

December

Accessibility Bulletin Week 49 – accessibility news around the globe

To be honest, we could have picked any of the weekly bulletins we produce all year round that round up the essential stories you need to know about accessibility. We cover key media updates that are both important and interesting across UK, US and EU markets, as well as other international developments that impact accessibility. If you want to keep on top of a critical topic but have limited time, the bulletin is an excellent way to find the stories that impact you but also support you in improving accessibility on your website.

We hope you’ve enjoyed the Sitemorse blog in 2020 and found it useful. We’ll be back in 2021. Happy reading!