Is My Website ADA Compliant? A Plain-English Check for Small Businesses

What "ADA compliant" actually means

The Americans with Disabilities Act does not publish a checklist for websites, and no government body hands out an "ADA compliant" badge. When courts and demand letters talk about an accessible website, they measure it against a technical standard called WCAG 2.2 AA. That is the yardstick that matters in practice.

We are not lawyers, and nothing here is legal advice. But the pattern is consistent: the sites that get complaints are the ones a blind visitor, a keyboard-only visitor, or a screen reader cannot actually use. Meeting WCAG 2.2 AA is how you close that gap.

How to check where your site stands

Start with a free automated scan. It takes about ten seconds and gives you a plain-English list of what a blind or keyboard-only customer runs into. You can run one on your own site here, no signup.

Just know what an automated scan can and cannot see. It reliably catches things like missing alt text and low contrast, but it only finds about a third of real problems. The rest need a person testing your templates with a keyboard and a screen reader, which is the part we do by hand.

• A scan is a fast first read, not a clean bill of health.
• The other two-thirds show up in manual testing.
• A green automated score does not mean you are safe from a complaint.

Why a widget alone will not do it

An accessibility widget, or overlay, is a script that drops a toolbar on your site and adjusts the page for a visitor who turns it on. That can genuinely help some people, but it sits on top of your page. It does not rewrite the HTML underneath, so the problems a screen reader hits are still there for everyone who does not use the widget.

This is not a fringe opinion. The FTC fined the overlay company accessiBe one million dollars for advertising that its widget made websites compliant. If a tool promises "instant compliance," treat that as a red flag. We cover this in more detail in do accessibility widgets actually work.

What actually fixes it

The real fix is unglamorous and durable: correct the code so the page works for everyone, with or without a toolbar. Most of it comes down to a handful of things.

• Describe images with alt text so a screen reader can announce them.
• Use headings in order so the page has a logical outline.
• Label every form field so people know what to type.
• Get colour contrast high enough to read in daylight.
• Make everything reachable and usable with a keyboard alone, with a visible focus outline.
• Write link text that says where it goes, not "click here."

Do that, and the widget becomes what it should be: a free convenience on top of a site that already works.

A simple next step

You do not have to guess. Run the free check to see where your site stands in plain English, then decide what is worth fixing. If you would rather have it handled, we scan, test by hand, fix the code, and leave you with a dated record of the work.