Website accessibility basics for small businesses

Around one in four adults in the US lives with some form of disability, according to the CDC. Many of them are your customers. An accessible website makes sure they can find your hours, read your menu, and book an appointment. It also lowers legal risk, and it tends to make the site better for everyone.

What the standard is

The widely used benchmark is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), published by the W3C. Most businesses aim for WCAG 2.1 or 2.2 at level AA. In the US, website accessibility lawsuits under the Americans with Disabilities Act have become common, and other countries have their own rules. This isn’t legal advice, but meeting WCAG AA is the practical goal most organizations work toward.

The fixes that cover most of it

Readable color contrast

Light grey text on a white background looks elegant and is hard to read. WCAG AA asks for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. Free contrast checkers will tell you in seconds.

Alt text on images

Screen readers read alt text aloud in place of images. Describe what matters: "Technician installing a new furnace in a basement" rather than "IMG_2041". Purely decorative images should have empty alt text so they’re skipped.

Labels on every form field

Each field needs a visible label, not just placeholder text that disappears when you start typing. Error messages should say what went wrong and how to fix it.

Headings in order

Use one main heading per page, then subheadings in a logical order. Screen reader users jump between headings to scan a page, just as sighted visitors scan visually.

Works with a keyboard

Try your site with only the Tab and Enter keys. Can you reach every link, button, and menu? Can you see where you are? If focus disappears or gets stuck in a pop-up, that needs fixing.

Captions and transcripts

Videos need captions. Audio content needs a transcript.

Text that can grow

People zoom. Your layout should still work when text is enlarged to 200%, without overlapping or cutting off.

Descriptive links

"Click here" tells a screen reader user nothing out of context. "See our full menu" does.

What about accessibility overlay widgets?

Some tools promise to make any site compliant with one line of code. Disability advocates have criticized many of them, and they don’t fix underlying problems like missing labels or poor structure. Building it right is more reliable.

Test it

• Run a free automated checker such as WAVE or Lighthouse in Chrome
• Navigate with a keyboard only
• Turn on your phone’s screen reader and try to complete your main task

Automated tools catch only part of the issues, so manual checks matter.

How we handle it

Every site we build uses semantic headings, labeled forms, alt text, keyboard-friendly navigation, and readable contrast as standard. See our work or start a project.