You've built a website that looks great—but can everyone actually use it? This 45-minute audit checks the seven most critical accessibility points that protect you legally and serve all your customers properly.
Here's the uncomfortable truth: accessibility lawsuits against small business websites have increased by over 300% in recent years. And it's not just large corporations being targeted—small businesses with non-compliant websites are increasingly receiving legal demand letters.
But this isn't just about avoiding legal trouble. One in four adults in the UK lives with a disability that affects how they use websites. When your site isn't accessible, you're literally turning away potential customers who want to buy from you.
The good news? Most small business websites fail on the same seven basic points—and all of them are fixable without technical expertise. This audit walks you through checking each one systematically, so you know exactly what needs attention and can document your compliance efforts.
This builds directly on the hallmarks of a 'good' website and the Accessibility Basics you've already covered. Now you're taking action to verify your site meets those standards.
What You'll Have When Done:
A completed 7-point accessibility checklist with recorded fixes
Time Needed: 45 minutes
Difficulty: Confident
Prerequisites:
Website is live; Basic understanding of website structure
On this page:
Quick Start (5 Minutes) | Complete 7-Point Audit | Troubleshooting
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Before you start, confirm you have:
Not sure you've covered the basics, or want a baseline score before you start manual testing? NetNav's audit checks fundamental accessibility factors (like Alt Text coverage and language declaration) in 60 seconds.
If you only have five minutes, check these five critical items first:
Open your homepage. Right-click on your hero image, primary service image, and logo. Select "Inspect" or "View Page Source" and look for `alt=""` in the code. If it's empty or says something useless like "image1.jpg", you need to add descriptive writing proper Alt Text.
Close your mouse or trackpad. Press the Tab key repeatedly. Can you reach every link, button, and form field? Do you see a visible outline (focus indicator) showing where you are? If links are skipped or invisible, you have a navigation problem.
Go to WebAIM's Contrast Checker. Enter your background colour (usually white: #FFFFFF) and your main body text colour (find this in your website settings or by inspecting the text). Does it pass WCAG AA? You need at least 4.5:1 for normal text.
Open your contact form. Does every input box have a label above or beside it that describes what goes in the box? Placeholder text (the grey text inside the box) doesn't count—you need permanent, visible labels for usable contact forms.
Find a link that says "Click Here," "Read More," or "Learn More." Change it to describe where it goes: "Read our refund policy" or "View our opening hours." This helps everyone understand your site structure.
You've completed the quick check if:
✅ Completed the quick version? If you only had minor issues, you can move on to Weekly Marketing Check-In (15-Minute Routine), or continue below for the detailed 7-point walkthrough.
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This complete audit covers the seven most common compliance failures on small business websites. Work through each point systematically, recording your findings as you go.
What you're checking: Every functional image on your site has accurate, descriptive alternative text that conveys the same information as the image.
How to do it:
Start with your five most important pages (homepage, about, services, contact, and your top-selling product or service page). On each page, identify every image that conveys information or serves a function—this includes:
Don't worry about purely decorative images (like background patterns or design flourishes)—these should have empty Alt Text (`alt=""`) to tell screen readers to skip them.
For each functional image, right-click and inspect the code. Look for the `alt=""` attribute. Ask yourself: "If I couldn't see this image, would the Alt Text give me the same information?"
Good Alt Text: `alt="Woman using laptop at cafe table with coffee cup"`
Bad Alt Text: `alt="image-hero-1.jpg"` or `alt="woman laptop"`
Record each image that's missing Alt Text or has poor Alt Text. You'll need to add or update these through your website editor. For detailed guidance on writing effective descriptions, see Alt Text: What It Is and How to Write It.
What you're checking: Users can access every interactive element on your site using only a keyboard (no mouse required).
How to do it:
This test simulates how people with motor disabilities or screen reader users navigate your website. Open your homepage and put your mouse aside completely.
Press the Tab key. You should see a visible outline (called a focus indicator) appear around the first interactive element—usually a "Skip to content" link or your first navigation item. Keep pressing Tab and watch the focus indicator move through:
[MEDIA:DIAGRAM:keyboard-tab-path]
Press Shift+Tab to move backwards through the same sequence. The order should be logical and predictable—generally top to bottom, left to right.
Red flags to record:
Test this on at least three different page types (homepage, content page, and a page with forms). If you find issues, note which specific pages and elements are problematic.
What you're checking: Text has sufficient contrast against its background to be readable by people with low vision or colour blindness.
How to do it:
WCAG AA standards (the legal minimum in most jurisdictions) require:
Open the WebAIM Contrast Checker in a new tab. You'll need to identify the hex colour codes for your text and backgrounds. Find these by:
Test these critical combinations:
[MEDIA:SCREENSHOT:color-contrast-tool]
Enter each foreground/background pair into the checker. Record any combinations that fail AA standards. You'll need to either darken your text, lighten your background, or both.
Common failure: Light grey text (#999999) on white backgrounds—popular in modern design but fails accessibility standards. When choosing accessible brand colours, always verify contrast ratios.
Manual contrast checking is essential for design choices, but tedious for site-wide review. This is one of the checks NetNav runs automatically across your whole site, flagging specific pages that need attention based on strict WCAG guidelines, saving you hours.
What you're checking: Every form input has a properly associated label that screen readers can announce.
How to do it:
Open every form on your website—contact forms, newsletter signups, quote requests, booking forms. For each input field, verify:
✓ Correct: A visible label appears above or beside the input box
✗ Incorrect: Only placeholder text inside the box (the grey text that disappears when you start typing)
Placeholder text is helpful, but it's not a replacement for proper labels. Screen readers often can't access placeholder text, and it disappears as soon as someone starts typing, making it useless for reference.
Check these specific input types:
Right-click on an input and inspect the code. Look for a `
If your forms only use placeholder text, you'll need to add proper labels through your form builder or website editor. Most modern form plugins have a "label" field separate from the "placeholder" field—use both. For more context, review Add Simple Usable Forms to Your Website.
What you're checking: Link text describes the destination or action, not generic phrases like "click here."
How to do it:
Screen reader users often navigate by jumping from link to link, hearing only the link text out of context. When every link says "Read More" or "Click Here," this navigation method becomes useless.
Scan through your main pages and identify any links with vague text:
❌ Vague link text:
✓ Descriptive link text:
Record every vague link and rewrite it to be self-explanatory. The link text should make sense even if you heard it with no surrounding context.
Pro tip: This also improves your search engine optimisation efforts because search engines use link text to understand what pages are about.
What you're checking: Your page headings follow a logical hierarchy (H1 → H2 → H3) that defines the document structure.
How to do it:
Headings aren't just about visual size—they create an outline of your page that screen readers use for navigation. Users can jump from heading to heading to find the section they want.
For each main page, verify:
Use a browser extension like HeadingsMap (free for Chrome and Firefox) to visualise your heading structure. It should look like a table of contents.
Common mistakes:
If your structure is illogical, you'll need to reassign heading levels in your page editor. Most website builders let you change heading levels without changing the visual appearance.
What you're checking: Videos have captions and audio content has transcripts.
How to do it:
Identify every piece of time-based media on your site:
For each video, verify:
For each audio file, verify:
If you're missing captions or transcripts, you have three options:
Even a basic, imperfect transcript is better than nothing. You can always improve it later.
You've completed the full audit if:
🎉 Completed? You now have a solid foundation for accessibility compliance. Apply these fixes immediately, and you're ready for Weekly Marketing Check-In (15-Minute Routine).
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Problem: I can't easily see if my brand colours pass the contrast check.
Fix: Use a free, dedicated online contrast checker (like WebAIM Contrast Checker) to input your exact hex codes for definitive results. Don't rely on visual judgment—what looks fine to you might fail for someone with low vision.
Problem: The Tab key jumps randomly or skips important links when keyboard testing.
Fix: This usually indicates incorrect HTML structure (focus order). If you can't fix the code yourself, flag the issue for developer input or adjust the component layout in your CMS settings. Sometimes reordering page sections visually also fixes the tab order.
Problem: I have videos or audio recordings but no transcripts or captions.
Fix: For quick compliance, manually upload a basic transcript to the page below the media, or use free tools like YouTube's auto-captioning, even if temporary. You can improve accuracy later—having something is better than nothing.
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You've completed the foundational accessibility audit—a significant step towards compliance and serving all customers properly. Your next priority is maintaining what you've built.
Immediate next step: Weekly Marketing Check-In (15-Minute Routine)
This quick weekly routine ensures your accessibility fixes stay in place and catches new issues before they become problems.
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Ready to expand beyond the basics?
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You've completed the foundational accessibility audit—a huge step towards compliance and serving all customers. Ready to see the bigger picture? NetNav can audit your entire site across 9 pillars in 60 seconds—see what other technical areas need attention beyond accessibility, from performance to security to understand the legal requirements you're meeting.
[MEDIA:CHECKLIST:accessibility-audit-7point]
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