Accessibility means building your site so everyone can use it, including people who are blind or partially sighted, who cannot use a mouse, or who find small low-contrast text hard to read. Around one in five people in the UK lives with a disability, so this is not an edge case, and most small business sites get it wrong by accident rather than by choice.
Why it matters
Three reasons, all real. It lets a large group of people actually use your site and buy from you rather than giving up. It is expected in law: the Equality Act asks businesses to make reasonable adjustments, and your website is part of that. And it tends to help search, because the same structure that helps a screen reader helps Google read the page too.
The basics that cover most of it
- Readable contrast between text and background, so words do not disappear against a pale or busy backdrop.
- Alt text on images, describing what they show, so screen readers and search engines both understand them.
- Labels on every form field, not just placeholder text that vanishes as you type.
- Keyboard navigation, so someone who cannot use a mouse can still move through the site and submit a form.
- Clear heading structure, so the page has a logical outline rather than text sized by eye.
- Never relying on colour alone to carry meaning, since not everyone sees it the same way.
What you do not need to do
A small business does not need a formal accessibility audit before launching a simple site. Get the basics above right and you have handled most of what actually trips people up. A full audit is worth it for larger sites, for the public sector, or where accessibility is central to what you do, but it is not the starting point for everyone.
Accessibility is far cheaper built in than bolted on later, which is why we treat it as part of how we build sites rather than an extra. It also sits naturally alongside site speed, since both are about not putting obstacles between people and your content.
The short version. Accessibility is making your site usable by everyone. Get contrast, alt text, form labels, keyboard use, clear headings and non-colour cues right, and you have covered most of it, helped a lot of people, and done your SEO a favour at the same time.