Website Accessibility Basics for Small Businesses
Most small-business owners never think about website accessibility basics until someone mentions a lawsuit or a customer says, “I couldn’t read your menu on my phone.” Then it sounds like a big, expensive technical project.
Fortunately, it usually isn’t. Most website accessibility basics come down to a short list of fixes: readable text, labeled forms, described images, and buttons that say what they do. Those fixes help people with disabilities. They also help older customers, people on small phones in bright sunlight, and anyone in a hurry. In other words, they help the people you want to call you.
This post explains what accessibility means in plain English, the six problems that show up most often, and how to check your own site in about fifteen minutes.
What website accessibility basics actually mean
An accessible website is one that people can use whether they see, hear, move, or think differently. Someone who is blind may use a screen reader that reads the page out loud. Someone with a tremor may use a keyboard instead of a mouse. People with low vision may zoom the page to 200%. A visitor with color blindness may not see that a red field means “error.”
The common yardstick is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, usually called WCAG. The current version is WCAG 2.2, published by the W3C. The W3C’s introduction to web accessibility is a good, readable starting point if you want the bigger picture.
Fortunately, you do not need to memorize WCAG. For a typical local business site, a handful of habits covers most of the real-world problems.
Why it matters for a small business
- More customers can finish the job. If a visitor can’t read your hours or submit your quote form, that lead is gone.
- Older visitors benefit a lot. Small gray text and tiny tap targets frustrate many people who would never call themselves disabled.
- It overlaps with good SEO. Clear headings, descriptive link text, and image descriptions help search engines understand the page too.
- There is legal attention. The Department of Justice’s ADA web guidance says businesses open to the public should make their websites accessible. We are not lawyers, and this isn’t legal advice, but it’s a good reason not to ignore the topic.
Website accessibility basics: the six most common problems
Every year, WebAIM scans the home pages of the top one million websites. In its 2026 WebAIM Million report, 95.9% of those home pages had detectable WCAG failures. The same few problems sit at the top of the list year after year:
- Low-contrast text (83.9% of home pages). Light gray text on white, or white text on a pale photo, is hard to read for many people.
- Missing alt text on images (53.1%). Screen readers can’t describe a photo that has no text description.
- Form fields without labels (51%). A field that only shows “Name” as faint placeholder text can confuse screen readers and disappear once someone starts typing.
- Empty links (46.3%). An icon link with no text, such as a Facebook logo, gets announced as just “link.”
- Empty buttons (30.6%). A search or menu button with only an icon and no label leaves people guessing.
- Missing page language (13.5%). Without it, a screen reader may read your English page with the wrong pronunciation.
The good news is that small business sites tend to be simpler than the giant sites in that report. Fixing these six items often takes hours, not weeks.
How to check website accessibility basics in 15 minutes
You can do a useful first pass without any special skills. Try these steps on your homepage and your contact page:
- First, run the page through the free WAVE accessibility checker from WebAIM. Look at the red errors and the contrast errors first.
- Next, put your mouse away and press the Tab key. You should be able to reach every menu item, link, and form field, and you should see where you are on the page.
- Then zoom your browser to 200%. Text should still be readable, and nothing important should overlap or vanish.
- Fill out your contact form with a mistake on purpose. Does the error message say what went wrong in words, not just a red outline?
- Finally, read your link text out of context. “Click here” and “Learn more” tell a screen-reader user nothing; “See our hosting plans” does.
- Check your phone number. It should be real text that people can tap to call, not part of an image.
However, automated tools only catch part of the picture. Even WebAIM notes that a page with no detected errors isn’t automatically accessible. Still, this quick check finds the problems most visitors actually run into.
Website accessibility basics: quick fixes that matter most
Text and color
In short, use dark text on a light background, or the reverse, with strong contrast. Avoid putting text over busy photos unless there is a solid overlay behind it. Don’t rely on color alone to show meaning; add a word or an icon as well.
Images
Next, give meaningful images a short, plain description, such as “Technician installing a water softener in a basement.” Decorative images can have empty alt text so screen readers skip them. In WordPress, you can add alt text right in the Media Library.
Forms and buttons
Likewise, every form field needs a visible label. Every icon button needs a text label, even a hidden one. Error messages should explain the fix in plain words. If your contact form is also unreliable, our post on why contact forms stop sending emails covers that side of the problem.
Be careful with “one-click” accessibility plugins
You may see ads for a widget or overlay that promises to make your site compliant with a single line of code. Be skeptical. These tools can add a toolbar for adjusting text size, but they can’t write accurate alt text for your photos or fix a form that was built wrong. Many accessibility experts and disability advocates have criticized them for promising more than they deliver.
Instead, the more reliable path is to fix the actual page: the theme, the content, and the forms. That work also lasts when you change plugins later.
Make accessibility part of normal upkeep
Accessibility isn’t a one-time badge. New photos get uploaded without alt text. A new page gets a pale font. A plugin update changes a form. The simplest habit is to include a quick accessibility check whenever content changes, the same way you’d check that links work.
That fits naturally into regular care. Our guide on what website maintenance includes month to month explains the other routine tasks. If your site is older and has many of these problems baked into the design, it may be one of the signs a redesign makes sense. And because accessible pages are easier to act on, they also support the goals in getting more phone calls from your website.
Want a second set of eyes on your site?
Simplified Internet Design builds and maintains WordPress websites for small businesses across St. Clair County and Southeast Michigan. We can run through these basics with you, fix the common problems, and keep new content from slipping backward. Learn more about our website design services, or contact us to talk about your site.
