Yes, in most cases your small business website needs to be accessible to people with disabilities if you serve the public. The U.S. Department of Justice says the ADA covers the goods and services a business offers on the web, and while the law does not hand you a single checklist, fixing the most common barriers is something most owners can start on this week.
I run a wellness center in Charlottesville as well as STANDBY Local, so I know this usually shows up as a worry, not a project. The good news: the fixes that make a site accessible also make it clearer and easier for Google to understand.
Does the ADA really apply to a small business website?
If your business is open to the public, the Justice Department's position is that your website is part of what you offer. That covers a plumber in Crozet just as much as a boutique on the Downtown Mall.
The DOJ's guidance on web accessibility and the ADA, published in March 2022, states that the ADA's requirements apply to all the goods, services, privileges or activities offered by public accommodations, including those offered on the web.
The same guidance says businesses have flexibility in how they comply, but they must comply. There is no form to file or badge to earn. What matters is whether a person with a disability can use your site to see your hours, read your menu or book a visit.
One note so nothing gets mixed up: in 2024 the DOJ published a separate rule with specific technical requirements for state and local government websites. That rule is about governments, not private businesses. I am not a lawyer, so if you have received a demand letter or have a specific legal question, talk to an attorney.
What standard should my website follow?
The practical benchmark is WCAG, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. The DOJ points to existing technical standards like WCAG as helpful guidance, even though it does not require one specific version for businesses.
According to the W3C's WCAG overview, the guidelines are organized under four principles: perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Each version adds success criteria at three levels, A, AA and AAA. WCAG 2.2, published in October 2023, is the latest version, and the W3C encourages using the latest version. When web designers talk about making a site accessible, they usually mean working toward WCAG 2.2 Level AA.
What are the most common accessibility problems on small business sites?
The big ones are missing image descriptions, low contrast text, forms without labels, pages that only work with a mouse and videos without captions. The DOJ guidance names each of these as examples of barriers.
- Images with no alt text. A screen reader cannot describe a photo of your finished deck or your lunch special unless the image has a short text description.
- Low color contrast. Light gray text on a white background, or white text over a busy photo, is hard to read for people with low vision or color blindness, and for everyone on a phone in bright sun.
- Form fields without labels. If your contact or booking form relies on faint placeholder text, screen reader users may not know what each box is asking for.
- Mouse-only menus and buttons. Some people navigate with a keyboard. If you cannot tab through your menu and see where you are, they cannot either.
- Videos without captions. An uncaptioned video leaves out people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
How can I check my own website today?
Do a simple self-review, then fix what you find on your most visited pages first. The first pass takes under an hour.
- Try your site with only a keyboard. Press Tab to move through links and buttons, and Enter to click. Can you reach your menu, phone number and contact form, and can you always see which item is selected?
- Look at every image on your homepage and service pages. In your website editor, check that each meaningful image has alt text describing what it shows.
- Zoom your browser to 200 percent. Text should get bigger without overlapping or disappearing off the side of the page.
- Check your contrast. If any text makes you squint, it needs a darker color or a plainer background.
- Fill out your own contact form. Every field should have a visible label, and error messages should say what went wrong in words, not just a red outline.
- Turn your menu or price list into real text. If it only exists as a photo or PDF, add a text version on the page.
The W3C Easy Checks guide walks through page titles, headings, contrast, text resizing, keyboard access, forms and multimedia step by step. It is honest about its limits: it is designed to be quick rather than definitive, and a page could seem to pass these checks yet still have significant barriers. Treat it as a starting point, not a certificate.
Will an accessibility plugin or overlay take care of it?
Not by itself. The DOJ says automated checkers and overlays can be helpful tools, but a clean report does not necessarily mean everything is accessible, and it recommends pairing automated checks with manual review.
Scanners catch missing alt text or low contrast. They cannot tell whether your alt text makes sense or whether a keyboard user gets stuck in a pop-up. A person still has to try the site the way a customer would.
Does accessibility help with Google and AI search too?
Yes, a lot of the same work pays off twice. Clear headings, descriptive alt text and real text instead of text baked into images help search engines and AI tools understand your pages.
Google's image SEO documentation says it uses alt text along with computer vision and page content to understand images, and that good alt text improves accessibility for people who cannot see images. Google also warns against stuffing keywords into alt text. Describe the photo the way you would to a customer on the phone, such as a new walnut cabinet install in a Waynesboro kitchen, and leave it there.
If you want to go further on the search side, my post on whether your website needs schema markup covers another behind-the-scenes layer that helps Google read your site. And if you are planning a refresh anyway, what a small business homepage should include is a good companion to this checklist.
What if my website is old or built on a template?
Fix the pages that matter most first, then decide whether a rebuild makes more sense than patching.
Some older templates bake in problems, like menus that only open on hover or text locked inside sliders. If you are fighting the template on every page, a rebuild may be simpler. Our small business website cost guide lays out what that typically involves, and the free local business growth scorecard can help you see where your site stands alongside your Google presence.
If you would rather not spend your evenings tabbing through your own website, this is part of how we build and maintain sites at STANDBY. Every website we build is designed with readable contrast, labeled forms, keyboard-friendly navigation and real alt text from day one, so it works for every customer and you can get back to the work you love.
Common questions
Is there an official ADA certification for websites?
No. The DOJ guidance describes no certification process, and it says businesses have flexibility in how they comply. Be cautious of anyone selling a badge or certificate that promises legal protection.
Do I need to make my whole site accessible at once?
Start with the pages customers rely on most: your homepage, services, hours and location, contact form and booking or ordering pages. Then work through the rest and build accessibility into anything new you add.
Does my Facebook or Instagram page count as my website?
Social platforms control their own page layouts, but you still control what you post. Add alt text to photos where the platform allows it, caption your videos, and avoid putting key details like hours or prices only inside an image.
Not sure where your site stands? Book a free 15-minute call and I will take a quick look with you, point out the biggest barriers I see and tell you plainly whether a few fixes will do or a rebuild makes more sense.