Website Accessibility Small Business Owners Don’t Know About
The Visitors Who Land on Your Site and Just Leave
Most people spend a lot of energy making sure their website looks right. Colours, photos, the layout. They get it looking the way they want and call it done.
What they don’t realize is that some visitors can’t use their site at all. They land on it, can’t get through it, and leave.
You never know they were there.
We have accessibility laws that protect people with disabilities in the physical world. Handicap parking spots, grab bars in bathrooms, ramps at building entrances. Those rules exist because everyone deserves to get in the door.
Websites have the same kind of rules.
What Website Accessibility for Small Business Actually Covers
They’re called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG. They cover things like whether your text is easy to read against your background colour, whether your images have descriptions for people who can’t see them, and whether your site can be used without a mouse.
Most small business owners have never heard of WCAG.
The Legal Side Most Owners Have Never Heard Of
This is a legal requirement, not just a best practice.
In Canada, it falls under the Accessible Canada Act and Ontario’s AODA. Similar laws exist in the UK, the US, and across the EU.
A Privacy Policy is also a legal requirement for your website. So is having your cookie banner turned on. Most people don’t find that out until someone tells them.
WCAG is the same. It’s a legal requirement that most small business owners have never heard of.
If someone can’t access your website and files a complaint, you could face a human rights complaint or a fine. Nobody is actively checking small business websites. Enforcement happens when someone reports it.
The bigger concern right now is this: people who can’t use your site will leave. You’ll never know you lost them.
Three Free Tools to Check Your Site in Ten Minutes
Checking your site takes about ten minutes.
Here are three free tools to get you started:
1. WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool
Type your website address into WAVE and it scans your page. It shows you the problems right on your actual site so you can see what needs attention and where.
Google Lighthouse is already built into your Chrome browser. Go to your website, right-click anywhere on the page, and choose Inspect. Click the Lighthouse tab and run the accessibility audit. It gives you a score and a plain-language list of what to fix.
WCAG requires your text to be dark enough against your background that people can read it. A lot of websites fail this without knowing it.Paste your text colour and background colour into the tool, and it tells you whether you pass or fail.
Start with one tool. If you’re not sure what to do with the results, paste them into ChatGPT or Claude and ask for a plain-language explanation of what needs fixing and how to fix it. Then send the results to whoever manages your website. Most issues are simple once you know what you’re looking at.
Had you heard of WCAG before today? Hit reply and let me know.
Keeping all the doors open,