A website that works beautifully for one user but locks out another isn’t doing its job. Website accessibility is the practice of designing and building your site so that people of all abilities can navigate and interact with it comfortably. At FirstPage Marketing, we see accessibility as fundamental to good web design rather than an afterthought. Following the best practices for website accessibility benefits every visitor, from users with disabilities to those on older devices, and it strengthens your SEO in the process.
What Website Accessibility Actually Means
At its core, accessibility means removing barriers. A screen reader user should be able to understand your page just as clearly as someone browsing on a desktop. A person who relies on a keyboard rather than a mouse should be able to move through your forms and menus without getting stuck. Someone with a visual impairment should be able to read your content without straining.
Accessibility also benefits search engines. Many of the same structures that help assistive technologies understand a page, such as logical heading hierarchies, descriptive link text, alt text for images, transcripts for video content, and properly labelled form elements, also make your site easier for crawlers to index. Building for accessibility and building for SEO overlap more than most people realize.
Designing for All Users from the Start
Responsive and Mobile-Friendly Design
A website that adapts to different screen sizes is foundational to accessibility. Users access the web from phones, tablets, desktops, and everything in between. A responsive design that reflows content correctly across those screen sizes removes a significant barrier for users who may rely on a specific device due to their disability or circumstances.
Screen Reader Compatibility and Semantic HTML
Screen readers convert text and other elements into audio, allowing users with visual impairments to hear what’s on a page. For this to work correctly, a website needs to use semantic HTML: the right elements for headings, lists, paragraphs, buttons, and navigation, in a logical order. A page built on a foundation of proper HTML structure is far easier for screen readers to interpret than one that relies on generic divs and visual cues alone.
Keyboard Navigation
Not everyone uses a mouse or a touchscreen. Many users, including those with motor impairments, navigate exclusively with a keyboard, tabbing through links, buttons, forms, and other interactive elements. Every interactive part of your website should be navigable and usable via keyboard alone. If a user can’t tab into a dropdown menu or submit a form without a mouse, that’s an accessibility gap worth fixing.
Clear, Descriptive Content
Alt Text for Images
Alt text is a short written description attached to an image. Screen readers read it aloud, giving users with visual impairments context about what an image contains. Alt text also appears when an image fails to load, so it serves every visitor. Write alt text that describes the image accurately and specifically, the way you’d describe it to someone who couldn’t see it.
Descriptive Link Text
Link text that says only “click here” tells users nothing about where the link leads. For screen reader users who navigate by jumping from link to link, vague anchor text is especially disorienting. Use text that describes the destination: “learn more about our web design services” or “read our guide to email marketing.” This helps sighted users too, and it’s better for SEO.
Readable Fonts and Scalable Text
Font choices matter for accessibility. Clean, simple typefaces at a reasonable base size are easier to read for users with low vision or reading difficulties. Beyond selecting an accessible font, your design should allow users to scale text up through their browser settings without breaking the layout or hiding content. If a page falls apart at 150% text zoom, it needs attention.
Plain Language
Clear, simple language removes barriers for people with cognitive or learning disabilities and those for whom English is a second language. Keep sentences reasonably short, avoid unnecessarily complex vocabulary, and explain technical terms when they’re needed. This isn’t about dumbing content down; it’s about making it genuinely readable for the people who visit your site.
Colour and Visual Design
Contrast Between Text and Background
Sufficient contrast between text and its background is one of the most impactful changes you can make for users with visual impairments or colour blindness. Light-coloured text on a light background, or dark text on a dark background, is a strain even for users without impairments. The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) provide specific contrast ratio targets that act as a useful benchmark when evaluating your colour choices.
Don’t Rely on Colour Alone
Colour is a powerful design tool, but some users can’t distinguish certain colours reliably. Using colour as the only way to convey important information, for example showing an error field in red without any text explanation, creates a barrier. Pair colour with text labels, icons, or patterns so that the meaning is clear regardless of whether a user can perceive colour differences.
Accessible Multimedia and Forms
Captions and Transcripts
Any video or audio content on your site should have either captions, a transcript, or both. Captions make video content accessible to users who are deaf or hard of hearing. Transcripts serve a similar function for audio content and offer an additional benefit: search engines can read text but not audio, so providing a transcript helps your content get indexed and understood by crawlers.
Avoiding Automatic Media Playback
Media that plays automatically when a page loads can be disorienting for users with cognitive or sensory sensitivities, and it’s frustrating for most users in general. The same issue applies to navigation elements that animate or change without user input. Give users control: content should play when they choose to play it, not the moment they land on the page.
Form Labels and Error Messages
Forms are one of the trickiest areas to get right for accessibility. Every form field needs a clearly visible label that persists while the user fills it in. Placeholder text inside a field doesn’t count, because it disappears when the user starts typing.
Error messages should explain specifically what went wrong and how to fix it. A message like “invalid input” is not helpful; “please enter a valid email address” is. Clear, actionable error messaging helps all users and is particularly valuable for those using screen readers.
Site Structure and Navigation
A well-organized site structure helps all visitors, but it makes a significant difference for users who rely on screen readers or keyboard navigation. Menus should be clearly marked and consistently placed. Each page should have a descriptive title that tells the user where they are. Navigation hierarchies should be logical and limited to a manageable depth so users aren’t buried in nested menus.
Clear page titles give screen reader users a quick way to orient themselves after navigating to a new page. When every page is titled something meaningful rather than generic, users with disabilities can understand the site structure without having to read through the entire page first.
Testing and WCAG Compliance
Automated Testing Tools
Certain tools can be used to scan your site and flag common accessibility issues: missing alt text, insufficient contrast ratios, unlabelled form fields, and similar problems. These scans are a useful starting point and can catch a significant number of issues quickly. They don’t catch everything, but running them regularly keeps you informed about the state of your site.
User Testing with People with Disabilities
Automated tools can’t replicate the experience of actually using a site with a screen reader or a keyboard. Testing with real users who have disabilities surfaces usability gaps that no scanner will catch. If you have the opportunity to observe how someone with a visual or motor impairment navigates your site, those insights are often immediate and actionable.
WCAG as a Benchmark
The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, outline internationally recognized standards for web accessibility. Aiming for WCAG 2.1 Level AA compliance is a widely accepted benchmark for most websites. Working toward these guidelines gives your accessibility efforts a clear, structured target and a shared language for communicating requirements with your design and development team.
An accessible website is a better website. Visitors move through it more easily, content communicates clearly, and the underlying structure serves both users and search engines well. If you’re not sure how your site currently measures up, our team would be glad to take a look. Call us at 604-866-2230 to talk through an accessibility review and what improvements would make the biggest difference for your visitors.
