Website Accessibility Basics: Making Your Site Usable for Everyone

On this page

1. Why accessibility matters for business
2. 10 accessibility basics
3. Quick ways to check your site
4. Common WordPress issues
5. Accessibility is ongoing

Website accessibility means making your site usable for everyone, including people with visual, hearing, motor or cognitive impairments, older visitors, and anyone using a small screen in bright sunlight. It's the right thing to do, and it usually improves SEO and conversions too.

Why accessibility matters for business

• More customers: a significant share of people have some form of disability, and many more have age-related vision or dexterity changes
• Better usability for everyone: clear text, good contrast and simple navigation help all visitors
• SEO overlap: proper headings, alt text and descriptive links help search engines understand your pages too

10 accessibility basics

1. Good colour contrast. Text must stand out clearly from its background, especially light grey text on white.
2. Readable text size. Body text around 16px or larger, with comfortable line spacing.
3. Proper headings. One H1 per page, then H2s and H3s in order, never chosen just for their size.
4. Alt text for meaningful images, describing what they show.
5. Descriptive links. "Read the WordPress cost guide" instead of "click here".
6. Links distinguishable from text, not only by colour: underline links in paragraphs.
7. Keyboard navigation. Menus, buttons and forms should work with the Tab key, with a visible focus outline.
8. Labelled forms. Every field has a visible label, and error messages explain how to fix the problem.
9. No information by colour alone. Pair colours with text or icons.
10. Captions or transcripts for important videos, and no auto-playing audio.

Quick ways to check your site

• Lighthouse (in Chrome DevTools or PageSpeed Insights) includes an accessibility score and a list of issues
• Try navigating with only the keyboard: can you reach and use everything?
• Zoom to 200%: does the layout still work?
• Check contrast with a contrast checker tool

Serving many older customers? See making your website easy for older visitors.

Common WordPress issues

• Themes with low-contrast grey text
• Headings used for styling instead of structure
• Sliders and pop-ups that trap keyboard users
• Icon-only buttons with no text label
• Page builder sections that are visually fine but badly structured

To check your own pages step by step, work through the website accessibility audit checklist.

Accessibility is ongoing

Every new page, image and form is a chance to keep things accessible. Build good habits into your content process: alt text on every upload, clear headings, and descriptive links. See also design mistakes that cost customers.

Accessibility improvements are included when I redesign websites, alongside speed and SEO.