Insights
Website Accessibility Basics for Small Businesses
Learn practical accessibility basics involving keyboard use, contrast, headings, images, forms, motion and understandable feedback.
Make information and actions available in more than one way
Visitors may use a keyboard, screen reader, magnification or reduced-motion settings. Accessibility work considers whether they can understand the content and complete the same important tasks. An automated score alone cannot establish that the whole experience is accessible.
Start with structure and controls
- Use headings in a meaningful order.
- Give form fields visible, associated labels.
- Keep keyboard focus visible and in a sensible order.
- Use actual links for navigation and buttons for actions.
- Explain errors and successful actions in text.
Review images, color and motion
Meaningful images need appropriate text alternatives; purely decorative images should not add unnecessary announcements. Do not communicate an error or selected state by color alone. Check readable contrast, enlarged text and alternatives to unnecessary animation.
Test a complete journey
Try finding a service, opening its detail page, completing a form and recovering from an error using the keyboard. Include screen-reader and zoom checks when reviewing the site. Problems often appear between components rather than inside one isolated element.
Understand the review boundary
WCAG provides a technical framework for accessibility. A practical review should state the pages and tasks tested, the findings and the remediation scope. It is not automatically an independent certification or a determination of legal compliance.