What Basic Accessibility Should a WordPress Site Get Right?
Why These Basics Matter
Accessibility isn't a single feature to add on top of a finished site — it's a set of practices that determine whether a genuinely wide range of visitors (people using screen readers, people with low vision, people who can't use a mouse) can actually use the site at all. Most of the highest-impact fixes are also relatively simple to implement correctly, which is why they're worth prioritizing first.
The Core Basics
- Meaningful alt text on every content-carrying image, describing what the image actually conveys, rather than a generic filename or nothing at all — purely decorative images should have empty alt text specifically, not be skipped entirely.
- Sufficient color contrast between text and its background, checked against WCAG's specific contrast ratio guidelines rather than judged purely by eye, since what looks readable to one person may not meet accessibility standards.
- A properly structured heading hierarchy (H1 for the main title, H2 for major sections, H3 for subsections, without skipping levels), which screen reader users rely on to navigate and understand page structure, not just for visual sizing.
- Full keyboard navigability — every interactive element (menu, button, form field) should be reachable and usable via keyboard alone (Tab, Enter, arrow keys), which many custom theme or page builder interactions accidentally break if not specifically tested.
- Descriptive link text ("read our WooCommerce fix services" rather than "click here"), which matters both for accessibility and for how screen readers present a page's links out of context.
Getting Started
- Audit existing images for meaningful alt text, fixing missing or unhelpful entries.
- Check color contrast using a proper contrast-checking tool against the site's actual color palette.
- Review heading structure across key pages for proper hierarchy.
- Test keyboard-only navigation through the site's main interactive elements.
Need a proper accessibility audit and fixes for your site? See WordPress bug fix.