Is your website accessible? What small businesses actually need to know

I ran an accessibility audit on a client’s site last month. Five pages, nothing complicated. A cafe in Bristol with a menu, an about page, and a contact form. The audit flagged 47 issues. Missing alt text on every image, no heading structure at all, form fields with no labels, contrast so low I could barely read some of the text myself on a sunny day.

The thing is, none of this was done on purpose. The site just got built without anyone thinking about it. That’s how most small business websites end up with accessibility problems.

Why this matters to your business

About one in five people in the UK has some kind of disability. That’s roughly 14 million people. Some use screen readers. Some can’t use a mouse. Some need high contrast or larger text. If your website doesn’t work for them, they’ll leave.

The Equality Act 2010 requires websites to be accessible to disabled people. It’s been the law for years, but enforcement has been patchy. That’s changing. The European Accessibility Act came into force in 2025, and while it’s aimed at larger companies, it’s pushing the whole industry towards stricter standards. Small businesses aren’t exempt from the Equality Act, and if someone can’t use your site, you’re potentially breaking the law.

But honestly, the legal stuff isn’t the main reason to care. The main reason is that accessible websites are just better websites. They’re easier to read, easier to use on a phone, and they tend to rank better on Google. Every accessibility fix I’ve ever made to a client’s site has also improved the experience for everyone else.

The stuff that actually matters

You don’t need to become a WCAG expert. WCAG is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, the official standard for web accessibility. It’s 80 pages long and reads like a legal document. You don’t need to memorise it. You need to get a few basics right.

Images need alt text

Every image on your site should have a short description in the alt text. This is what screen readers announce to blind users. It’s also what Google uses to understand your images.

Good alt text describes what the image shows: “Team photo outside our Bristol shop” or “Close-up of our signature chocolate cake”. Bad alt text is “IMG_4523.jpg” or just nothing at all.

Decorative images that don’t add meaning (background patterns, divider lines) should have empty alt text so screen readers skip them entirely.

Headings need to follow a logical order

Your page should have one H1 (the main title), then H2s for sections, H3s for subsections. Don’t skip levels. Don’t use H3 because you like the font size, then jump to H1 for the next section.

Screen reader users often navigate by jumping between headings. If your heading structure is a mess, it’s like giving someone a book with the chapters in random order.

Forms need proper labels

Every input field needs a label that’s programmatically connected to it. Not just placeholder text that disappears when you start typing. An actual <label> element that tells screen readers what the field is for.

If you’ve ever tried to fill in a form on your phone and tapped the text next to a checkbox to select it, that’s labels working. Without them, you have to tap the tiny checkbox itself. Annoying for everyone, impossible for some.

<!-- This doesn't work for screen readers -->
<input type="email" placeholder="Your email">

<!-- This does -->
<label for="email">Your email</label>
<input type="email" id="email">

Colour contrast needs to be high enough

Text needs to stand out from its background. The WCAG standard says a ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text. Grey text on a slightly lighter grey background might look sleek, but it’s genuinely hard to read for a lot of people. And not just those with visual impairments. Anyone on a phone in direct sunlight will struggle too.

/* Hard to read for many people */
color: #888888;
background: #ffffff;

/* Clear and readable */
color: #333333;
background: #ffffff;

You can check your contrast ratios for free at WebAIM’s contrast checker. Takes about 30 seconds per colour combination.

Everything should work with just a keyboard

Some people can’t use a mouse. They navigate with Tab, Enter, and arrow keys. Try this on your own site right now: put your mouse aside, press Tab, and try to get to your contact page and submit the form. If you can’t see where you are on the page, or if you get stuck somewhere, that’s a problem.

The most common issue I see is developers removing the focus outline (that blue ring around buttons and links when you tab to them) because they think it looks ugly. It’s there for a reason. Remove it and keyboard users are flying blind.

How to check your site in 10 minutes

You don’t need to hire an accessibility consultant for a basic check. Here’s what I do as a quick first pass.

Run Lighthouse. Open your site in Chrome, right-click, choose “Inspect”, click the “Lighthouse” tab, tick “Accessibility”, and run it. You’ll get a score out of 100 and a list of specific issues to fix. It won’t catch everything, but it catches the obvious stuff.

Try WAVE. Go to wave.webaim.org, enter your URL, and it’ll show you a visual overlay of accessibility issues on your page. Missing alt text, empty links, contrast errors. Very easy to understand even if you’re not technical.

Use your keyboard. Like I said above. Tab through your whole site. If you get stuck or can’t see where you are, that needs fixing.

Check your headings. Install the HeadingsMap browser extension. It shows your heading structure as a tree. If it looks chaotic, your content needs reorganising.

None of these tools catch everything. Automated testing picks up maybe 30-40% of accessibility issues. The rest require manual checking or real user testing. But 30-40% is a lot better than nothing.

What to fix first

If your Lighthouse score is below 80, start with these. They’re the highest impact and usually the quickest to fix.

1. Add alt text to every image
2. Fix your heading structure
3. Add labels to all form fields
4. Fix any colour contrast failures
5. Make sure you can tab through the whole site

For a typical five-page small business site, fixing all of these takes a few hours at most. If you’re on WordPress, your theme might be causing some of the issues, and a theme update or switch might fix several at once.

What you probably don’t need to worry about

Full WCAG AAA compliance. AAA is the highest level. It’s extremely strict and designed for government services and specialist applications. AA is the standard you should aim for, and it’s what the Equality Act expects.

Hiring an accessibility consultant for a small brochure site. If you’re running five pages and a contact form, the free tools above will cover you. Save the consultant budget for when you’re building something more complex, like an online shop or a booking system.

Retroactively captioning every video. If you’ve got a promotional video on your homepage, yes, add captions. But you don’t need to go back and caption every Instagram reel you’ve ever embedded. Focus on the content that lives permanently on your site.

The ongoing bit

Accessibility isn’t a one-time fix. Every time you add a page, upload an image, or change your design, new issues can creep in. I’d recommend running a quick Lighthouse check whenever you make significant changes. Takes two minutes and catches most regressions.

If you’re working with a developer, ask them about accessibility during the build. It’s much cheaper to build an accessible site from the start than to retrofit one later. Any decent developer should be thinking about this already.

Not sure if your site is accessible? Drop me a message and I’ll run a quick check for you. No charge, no obligation. I work with small businesses in Bristol and across the UK.