An accessible website is not a luxury — it's doubling your reach

Imagine this: you have a shop, but the door is too narrow for a wheelchair. The menu is unreadable for someone with a visual impairment. The doorbell doesn’t work for someone who is deaf. You’re locking out part of your customer base — not deliberately, but structurally.

That’s exactly what an inaccessible website does. Every day.

Who you’re excluding

Accessibility isn’t just about blind visitors using a screen reader. It’s about everyone who can’t use your site as intended:

• People with a visual impairment — partially sighted, colour blind, blind people using a screen reader
• People with a motor impairment — who can’t use a mouse and navigate with the keyboard
• People with a cognitive impairment — who struggle with complex navigation or unclear text
• Older people — with reduced vision, slower motor skills, or unfamiliarity with digital patterns
• Everyone with a temporary impairment — a broken arm, a migraine, a cracked screen

That’s not a small group. Globally, 15% of the population has some form of disability. And that’s before you count older people and temporary impairments.

What an inaccessible site does

Most websites fail at basic accessibility. Research by WebAIM shows that 95.9% of the top million websites have detectable accessibility errors — averaging 56.8 errors per page. (Acquia/WebAIM, 2025)

The most common problems:

• No alt text on images. — A screen reader can’t “see” what’s in a photo. Without alt text, the image is invisible.
• Insufficient contrast. — Light grey text on a white background is unreadable for partially sighted visitors — and tiring for everyone.
• No keyboard navigation. — If your site can only be operated with a mouse, you’re excluding everyone who can’t use one.
• No language attribute. — Without lang="en", a screen reader doesn’t know which language to read aloud in.
• No logical heading structure. — If you use H1, H2, and H3 interchangeably (or not at all), a screen reader can’t structure the page.

It’s like publishing a book without a table of contents, without page numbers, and with random fonts that change every three pages. Technically it’s a book. Practically it’s unusable.

Why it costs you customers

Accessibility isn’t charity. It’s reach:

• Over a billion people globally with a disability who can’t use your site
• Older people who increasingly search online for service providers
• Mobile users in suboptimal conditions (bright sun, one hand free, in a hurry)

Each of these groups is a potential customer. And if your site doesn’t work for them, they go to the competitor who got it right.

Furthermore: Google rewards accessible sites. A clean heading structure, alt text, and a correct language attribute aren’t just good for screen readers — they’re signals Google uses to understand and rank your page.

The legal side

In the EU, the European Accessibility Act (EAA) has been officially in force since mid-2025. This means digital accessibility has become a legal obligation for an increasing number of commercial businesses and web shops. In the US, more than 3,000 lawsuits were filed in 2025 over inaccessible websites. (JD Supra, 2025)

Enforcement varies by country, but the trend is clear: digital accessibility is no longer a voluntary recommendation.

What an accessible site needs

The basics aren’t complicated. They’re technical fundamentals that should be standard in any well-built site:

• Alt text on every image — a short description of what’s visible

• Sufficient contrast — text that’s readable for everyone, in any lighting condition

• Keyboard navigation — every link, button, and form field reachable without a mouse

• Correct language attribute — so screen readers know which language to read in

• Logical heading structure — H1 for the title, H2 for sections, H3 for subsections

• Skip link — an invisible link at the top that lets screen readers jump directly to the content

• Semantic code. — Many DIY platforms build pages with an incomprehensible tangle of code (the infamous ‘code soup’), causing screen readers to get stuck. A custom-built static site uses clean HTML: buttons are real buttons, and menus are real menus.

With a professionally built site, these elements are there from day one. With DIY platforms, you have to add them yourself — if you even know they exist.

The difference

An accessible website isn’t a different website. It’s the same website, but built properly. The visitor without a disability notices nothing. The visitor with a disability notices everything.

It’s the difference between a building with stairs and a lift, and a building with only stairs. Both take you up. But only one welcomes everyone.

Curious how your website performs? Try the free website check.