Website Accessibility: Our Guide to Grow Your Audience & Brand Perception

In case you hadn’t realised.. at Squee, we love and champion website accessibility. Now, while we could dive into the real technical details of what makes a website accessible (and we will touch on those), we actually want you to stick around and read this. What probably matters more to you is why on earth you should care about website accessibility and, ultimately, how it helps your business. Fair enough. That’s exactly what this guide is here to do: answer the questions that matter to your business so you can decide if website accessibility is worth your time (spoiler: it absolutely is).

So what exactly is Website accessibility?

Good question. Long story short, digital accessibility is the practice of making websites and online features like PDFs and emails usable by everyone, including those with disabilities. This includes people with auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, visual, and speech disabilities. But, and it’s a big but, it doesn’t just benefit people with disabilities. There are countless scenarios where accessibility is just as beneficial to people without disabilities. We’ll touch on that later in the guide, but for now, the important thing to know is that digital accessibility is about allowing more people to see, use and buy your stuff online. And in our book, that’s a good thing.

Why should I care about Website Accessibility?

As a business owner, you’ve probably got more on your plate than you know what to do with – promoting your services, chasing leads, answering emails, maybe even finding time to breathe (or at least drink that cold coffee from three hours ago). So why on earth should website accessibility be something you add to the mix?

Because, whether you realise it or not, not making it a priority is probably making everything else harder. Here’s the thing: 1 in 4 people in the UK are disabled. That’s not a small number. And if your website isn’t accessible, there’s a 70% chance that someone will bounce right off it and head to a competitor instead – even if that competitor charges more. Makes sense really. If your booking form doesn’t work with a screen reader, it’s not just frustrating, it’s impossible to use. And if someone can’t use your site, they can’t give you their money. Bit of a dealbreaker.

Who’s impacted by Website Accessibility?

Short answer? More people than you probably think.

Yes, accessibility is essential for people with permanent disabilities – like someone who’s blind and relies on a screen reader, Deaf and needs subtitles or closed captions, or someone with limited mobility who uses tabbed navigation, but it also helps people with temporary or situational barriers. Think about someone with a broken arm, or trying to use your site one-handed while holding a baby (been there). Or someone on a slow internet connection, or browsing in bright sunlight, or just having a rough day and struggling to concentrate.

Not sure what a screen reader is, or how tabbed navigation works? Don’t worry, we’ll cover that off later in the guide.

What’s my Return on Investment?

While you might agree accessibility sounds like a great idea, if you’re in marketing, operations, or running the show yourself, you might not be able to justify the investment without something solid to back it up. That’s fair. It needs to make sense for the business too.

And spoiler, it does.

Disabled people and their households have a combined spending power of £274 billion. That’s not a typo. That’s billion with a b. So when your website isn’t accessible, you’re not just making life harder for someone, you’re turning away serious money.

And we’re not talking about the odd missed sale. UK businesses lose around £17.1 billion every year because people abandon websites they can’t use. Not because they didn’t want what you’re offering, but because your site was too awkward or broken to get through.

On the flip side, when your site is accessible, where people can actually understand what you do and place an order without wrestling with a form, 86% of disabled users say they’d spend more with you. And 7 in 10 say they’ll leave a site that isn’t accessible, no matter the price.

There are bonus wins too. Better SEO (because Google rewards accessible sites), smoother user experience (which helps everyone), and fewer legal headaches down the line.

So yeah, when you look at it like that, it’s kind of wild that all websites aren’t accessible already.

So what are the things on websites that prioritise accessibility do differently?

Well yes, one thing is for certain. They don’t just add an accessibility widget on their website and think that everything is ok. We’ll touch on this later. But long story short, there are lots of things websites can do to make their site more accessible. The important thing to remember is that this isn’t a one-time fix.

You’re not going to be able to hire a company (like Squee) to fix all the issues once and expect everything to continue working. It’s an ongoing experience, with feedback, iterations, testing, and embedding accessibility into the way your whole team thinks about your website.

That said, there are certainly some things that websites that have thought about accessibility do differently. These include, but aren’t limited to:

Checking colour contrast.

This is the number one accessibility issue on the web (and one of the simplest to resolve). Nearly 80% of websites have this problem. It’s all about how visible text is against the background. If someone can’t read your content clearly because of a colour choice, they’re gone.

Adding alternative text to images.

You’ve probably seen this option on social media or in your CMS when uploading an image. More often than not, it gets ignored. But if someone using your site is blind or has low vision, they’re relying on that alt text to fill in the context they can’t see. Writing good alt text isn’t complicated, but it makes a big difference.

Structuring the code properly.

Also known as semantic HTML. This means using proper headings in order, wrapping navigation in a <nav> tag, and making sure buttons are actually buttons. It helps assistive tech like screen readers make sense of the page, so users can quickly find what they need.

Supporting keyboard navigation.

This one gets missed a lot. For some people, using a mouse just isn’t possible. Menus, forms, buttons — they all need to work using the keyboard alone. That includes things like making sure dropdowns open when using the keyboard (dodgy JavaScript stops this a lot), and showing a clear visual highlight as you tab through the page. If you can’t see where you are, you’re stuck.

Making forms usable.

Forms should have proper labels that stick around, not placeholders that disappear when you start typing. And if someone makes a mistake, your form should clearly explain what went wrong and how to fix it. No one should be left guessing. If something needs extra context for screen reader users, things like ARIA labels can help.

Using clear link and button text.

“Click here” or “More info” doesn’t tell anyone anything — especially if you’re using a screen reader and hearing it out of context. Your links and buttons should be clear about what they do. Something like “Download our pricing brochure (PDF)” or “See delivery options for this product” gives people a much better idea of what to expect.

Adding captions or subtitles to videos.

If you’ve got videos on your site, they need captions. That could be closed captions, subtitles, or even a transcript. It helps Deaf users, but also anyone watching in a noisy place or with the sound off. If there’s spoken content, it should be available in text too.

Are there standards my site should aim for?

Yes, there are. And in some cases, it’s not just best practice, it’s the law. If your site isn’t accessible, you could be at risk of legal action. That could mean anything from fines to, in extreme cases, even prison time.

You might have heard of things like the Equality Act 2010 in the UK, the European Accessibility Act (EAA), or the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in the US. All of them point to the same thing: making sure your website doesn’t exclude disabled people.

The EAA is especially important right now. It comes into effect across the EU in 2025 (and is a huge step forward for accessibility) and applies to many businesses selling digital products or services to EU customers, even if you’re not based there. There are some exclusions, but if you serve or operate in any European market, it’s worth learning more sooner rather than later.

Most of these laws use the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, known as WCAG (2.1 – the base standard you’ll hear a lot). That stands for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (not the snappiest name, we know). It’s the standard most organisations are expected to follow.

Now you don’t need to know all of the guidelines and laws, but everything we mentioned in the last section, like colour contrast, alt tags and keyboard navigation, falls under this. You need to make sure your website is perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. That’s the core of what WCAG is built on (and of course, we can always help you with compliance)

Obviously, the goal isn’t just to follow standards and laws for the sake of it. It’s to make your website as accessible to as many people as possible. But these are good to know.

And if you’re interested in understanding how to meet these standards, get ready for the EAA, or want support with accessible development and design, you can contact us at Squee to find out how we can help.

Why worry about all this when I can install a website accessibility widget?

Unfortunately, website accessibility widgets aren’t the answer (and like many in the inclusion space, we’re not fans). While they have some useful features like screen magnification and colour modification, more often than not they do more harm than good.

For one, they very often get in the way and cause new issues for people using assistive technologies. But they also can’t fix the way a website has been built. Even when they say they do, they can’t provide true compliance with WCAG 2.1 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).

If a website is incorrectly coded, an overlay can’t suddenly make it understandable to a screen reader. It won’t fix broken JavaScript that stops someone from using keyboard navigation to open a submenu. And it certainly can’t add missing alt tags or descriptive labels to your forms and links.

Long story short, there is no replacement for building a properly accessible website. Even if these companies claim you can, it’s simply not true. You need your website to be properly designed, coded and tested to ensure it works for everyone — and you can’t get around that.

What should I do next?

First off, well done for getting through all of this. We know it takes time and headspace to sit down and properly read something like this, so we really appreciate it.

Hopefully by now you’ve realised that accessibility and inclusive design principles aren’t just important — they’re genuinely brilliant. And if you’re a business owner or part of a team, the case for making your website accessible is pretty hard to ignore.

If you’d like to find out how inclusive your website currently is, our Inclusivity Website Scorecard is a great place to start. If you’re already sold and know this is something you want to sort properly, feel free to reach out and we’ll arrange a call.

And again, thank you for taking the time to learn about accessibility. Even if nothing comes of this, we hope you’ll keep spreading the message and helping make the web a more inclusive place.