Is Your Website ADA Compliant? Here Are 3 Things to Fix Right Now
If your website is not accessible to people with disabilities, you are likely violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, and you may not know it. Most small business websites fail the most basic accessibility standards. The good news is that three specific fixes address the majority of the risk, and you can start on at least one of them today without touching a single line of code.
ADA compliance for websites is not just a legal conversation. It is a signal to your buyers that your business is credible, professional, and worth trusting. Accessibility problems also hurt your SEO scores because search engines measure the same things human accessibility tools do: image descriptions, page structure, contrast, and readability. Fixing accessibility makes your site better for humans and for search engines at the same time.
Here is what to prioritize.
What Does It Mean for a Website to Be ADA Compliant?
An ADA compliant website meets accessibility standards that allow people with visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive disabilities to use it effectively. The primary standard referenced in ADA website compliance cases is WCAG 2.1 (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines), published by the World Wide Web Consortium. Most ADA lawsuits targeting small businesses cite failures at the WCAG Level AA standard, which is the middle tier.
The law itself is not perfectly clear-cut. The ADA was written before websites existed, and courts have spent years interpreting whether it applies to digital properties. The current legal consensus is that it does, particularly for businesses with physical locations or for any business operating as a "place of public accommodation." That covers most small businesses.
You do not need to achieve perfect compliance overnight. You need to close the most significant gaps, demonstrate good-faith effort, and build accessibility into how you maintain your site going forward.
Does Adding Alt Text to Images Actually Matter?
Alt text is one of the highest-impact accessibility changes you can make, and it takes less than a minute per image. Alt text is a written description of an image that screen readers use to communicate visual content to users who cannot see it. Without it, a screen reader either reads the raw file name, which is typically meaningless, or skips the image entirely, leaving blind users with a gap in context.
Every image on your website should have a descriptive alt text entry. This includes photos, graphics, logos, icons, and any decorative elements that carry meaning. The description should convey what the image shows, not just label it. "Photo of woman" fails. "Business owner reviewing a brand strategy document at a desk" succeeds.
From an SEO perspective, alt text is also the primary way search engines understand what your images depict. Google cannot see a photo. It reads the alt text and uses that to determine relevance. This means that filling in your alt text is not just an accessibility task. It is also a ranking signal you have likely been leaving on the table.
If your site has dozens of images with no alt text, start with the images on your homepage and your most-visited service pages. Work through the rest over time.
Why Does Color Contrast Affect Website Compliance?
Low color contrast makes text difficult or impossible to read for people with low vision or color blindness, and it is one of the most commonly cited WCAG failures in ADA website lawsuits. WCAG 2.1 Level AA requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal body text and 3:1 for large text or bold headings.
That ratio sounds technical, but the practical version is simple. If your text is light gray on a white background, your light blue button text is sitting on a medium blue button, or your brand colors include a light tone-on-tone combination anywhere on the site, you almost certainly have a contrast issue.
You can check your contrast for free using the WebAIM Contrast Checker at webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker. Enter your text color and background color as hex codes and the tool will tell you instantly whether you pass or fail at the AA standard. If you fail, the fix is adjusting one of the two colors until you clear the threshold. In most cases, darkening the text or lightening the background by a small amount is enough.
This is worth checking across every button, every heading, every body paragraph, and every linked text on your site.
How Do Keyboard Navigation and Tab Order Affect ADA Compliance?
Users who cannot use a mouse navigate websites entirely through a keyboard, typically using the Tab key to move through interactive elements like links, buttons, and form fields. If your website cannot be navigated this way, it is effectively inaccessible to a significant portion of users with motor disabilities.
Testing this takes about two minutes. Open your website, put your mouse aside, and press Tab. Watch where the focus indicator moves. Can you reach every link and button in a logical order? Is there a visible indicator on screen showing you where you are? Can you activate buttons and submit forms using only your keyboard?
If the focus indicator is invisible, if the tab order jumps around the page without logic, or if any interactive element cannot be reached or activated with a keyboard, you have a navigation accessibility failure. This one is more likely to require developer involvement to fix correctly, depending on your platform. On Squarespace and Wix, the platform handles much of the underlying keyboard navigation structure for you, but custom code blocks or third-party embeds can break it.
Frequently Asked Questions About ADA Website Compliance
Can I get sued if my website is not ADA compliant? Yes. ADA website lawsuits have increased significantly over the past several years, with thousands filed annually in the U.S. Small businesses are frequent targets because they are less likely to have legal resources to fight back. Demonstrating good-faith effort and making documented improvements reduces your exposure significantly.
Do these rules apply to my industry? If you operate a business that serves the public, the ADA almost certainly applies to your website. Courts have consistently ruled that "places of public accommodation" include digital storefronts. Check with your attorney if you have specific questions about your situation.
What is the fastest way to audit my current site? Run your URL through the free WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool at wave.webaim.org. It will flag errors and warnings across your pages and tell you specifically what is broken and where. Start there before deciding what to fix first.
Does accessibility affect my Google ranking? Directly, no. Google does not publish a single "accessibility score" that affects rankings. Indirectly, yes. Alt text, heading structure, page speed, and contrast levels all overlap with ranking signals. A more accessible site is almost always a better-optimized site.
Take the First Step Before the Site Audit
Most small business owners find out their website has problems when a potential client cannot use it, or when a letter arrives from a plaintiff's attorney. Neither is a good way to discover the issue.
If your website was built a few years ago and has not been reviewed since, run it through WAVE today. It is free, it takes three minutes, and it will tell you exactly where your site stands.
If you are building a new site or rebuilding an existing one, accessibility should be part of the conversation from the start, not an afterthought. A website design process that includes accessibility review saves you the cost of fixing it later.
Carly Olson is the founder of Divergent Marketing and Branding, a brand strategy and marketing agency serving small businesses in The Woodlands, Conroe, Spring, and North Houston, and clients nationwide.
Last Updated: June 2026
