A demand letter is how most business owners learn about ADA web compliance for the first time, which is a rough way to be introduced to the topic. Here's the more useful framing: the fixes that shrink your legal exposure are largely the same changes that make your site easier to use for everyone, including people on a screen reader, someone navigating by keyboard, or a visitor squinting at a low-contrast page in bright sunlight.
"We can usually fix the top five accessibility issues on a small business site in under a day. The problem is almost never effort — it's that nobody flagged them until now."
Why Website Accessibility Matters More Than You Think
Roughly one in four adults in the U.S. lives with a disability that could affect how they use a website — vision, hearing, motor, or cognitive. That's a meaningful share of your potential customers, not an edge case. Add in the legal risk (small business website ADA lawsuits are now filed by the thousands every year, often targeting sites with basic, fixable issues) and accessibility becomes both a customer experience issue and a risk-management one. Here's where to start.
Add real alt text to every meaningful image
Alt text lets screen readers describe your images to visitors who can't see them, and it's one of the most commonly missing basics on small business sites. Write a short, specific description of what the image shows and why it's there — skip generic labels like "image1.jpg" or leaving it blank entirely.
Make sure text has enough contrast against its background
Light gray text on a white background might look sleek, but it's genuinely hard to read for low-vision users and anyone on a glare-heavy phone screen. Aim for strong contrast between text and background, and don't rely on color alone to convey information (like using only red text to mark an error).
Confirm your site works without a mouse
Some visitors navigate entirely by keyboard, tabbing between links, buttons, and form fields. Try it yourself: can you reach your contact form, menu, and booking button using only the Tab and Enter keys? If focus jumps around unpredictably or disappears, that's a real barrier worth fixing.
Label every form field clearly
A contact or booking form with unlabeled fields — placeholder text standing in for a real label — is confusing for screen reader users, who may not know what a field is asking for once they start typing. Use visible, permanent labels on every input.
Caption any video content
If you have testimonial videos, product demos, or embedded social content with audio, captions make that content usable for deaf and hard-of-hearing visitors — and as a bonus, most people watch video on mute anyway, so captions help everyone.
Use real headings instead of just bold text
Screen reader users often navigate a page by jumping between headings. If your "headings" are actually just bold, larger paragraph text rather than proper H1/H2/H3 tags, that navigation breaks. Proper heading structure also happens to be a solid on-page SEO practice.
Avoid tiny, fixed font sizes
Body text under roughly 16px is hard for many users to read comfortably, and text that's locked from resizing prevents visitors from zooming in on their browser or phone. Set reasonable base font sizes and let users adjust from there.
Worth knowing: This guide covers common, high-impact fixes — it isn't legal advice and doesn't guarantee full ADA or WCAG compliance. If you've received a demand letter or want a formal compliance audit, that's a conversation for an accessibility consultant or attorney. For most small businesses, though, addressing the items above closes the majority of the gap.
Where to Start This Week
You don't need to fix everything at once — start with alt text and contrast, since those are usually the fastest wins with the biggest impact. If you're also working on other technical fundamentals, our guides on improving website speed and making your site mobile-friendly pair well with an accessibility pass, since all three overlap in how they touch your site's underlying code.
Not sure how exposed your current site is?
We'll walk through your site against the basics above and flag what needs attention first — no legalese, just a plain-language punch list.
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