Website Accessibility Audit: Free WCAG Compliance Check

Why Accessibility Cannot Be an Afterthought

Web accessibility is no longer just an ethical commitment - it is a legal requirement, an SEO factor, and a competitive advantage. The European Accessibility Act now obliges most consumer-facing websites in the EU to meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA standards. In the US, lawsuits citing the ADA against inaccessible websites cross 4,000 every year.

Beyond compliance, an accessible site reaches the estimated 16% of the global population living with some form of disability. That is over a billion people you may be unintentionally excluding - and search engines treat many accessibility signals as quality indicators that influence rankings.

What WCAG Compliance Actually Means

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are organized around four principles, often abbreviated as POUR: Perceivable (content must be presentable to all senses), Operable (interface must work with any input device), Understandable (information and operation must be clear), and Robust (content must work with current and future assistive technologies).

Level AA is the practical compliance target for most public websites. It covers the majority of barriers without demanding perfection - and it is what regulators, courts, and accessibility advocates check against.

What Website Grader Checks

The accessibility category in Website Grader runs seven automated checks aligned with WCAG criteria. None of them require a screen reader test - they all examine the HTML your site delivers to the browser.

Language Declaration

A clear language signal at the top of the page tells screen readers which language to pronounce. Without it, assistive technology has to guess - producing garbled, often incorrect speech. This is one of the smallest fixes with one of the biggest impacts.

Heading Hierarchy

Screen reader users navigate by headings the way sighted users skim with their eyes. A page should have exactly one main heading, and lower levels should not be skipped. Broken hierarchy forces non-sighted users to listen to entire pages just to find what they need.

Image Alt Text Coverage

Every meaningful image needs descriptive alternative text. Decorative images should be marked as decorative so screen readers can skip them entirely. Website Grader measures alt text coverage across every image on the page and flags any page below 90%.

Form Labels

Form fields without proper labels are unusable for screen reader users - they hear "edit text" with no context about what to type. Every input needs a clearly associated label, whether visible or only announced to assistive tech. Website Grader inspects every form field on the page.

Structural Markup

Real structural sections - the header, the navigation, the main content, the footer - create automatic landmarks that assistive technologies use to jump between page regions. Sites built entirely from generic containers force users to listen linearly with no shortcuts. Website Grader rewards proper structural markup.

Navigation Landmarks

When structural markup is not enough, explicit landmark labels fill the gap - identifying the banner, navigation regions, the main content, and the footer area. Website Grader looks for these landmarks and confirms the page exposes a navigable region map.

Skip Navigation Link

Keyboard users tab through every link in the header on every page load - often dozens of taps before reaching the content. A "Skip to main content" link at the very top of the page lets them bypass the navigation. It is invisible to most users but transformative for accessibility.

Common Accessibility Mistakes

Color as the Only Signal

"Required fields are in red" - but what about colorblind users? Around 8% of men and 0.5% of women have some form of color vision deficiency. Always pair color with another signal: an asterisk, an icon, or text.

Tiny or Low-Contrast Text

Body text below 16 pixels is hard to read on mobile. Text with insufficient contrast against its background fails for users with low vision. WCAG AA requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for body text and 3:1 for large text.

Click Handlers on Non-Interactive Elements

Buttons built from generic clickable containers do not receive keyboard focus by default and are invisible to assistive technology. Use real button elements for actions and real link elements for navigation - not styled wrappers that only look interactive.

Auto-Playing Media

Audio or video that plays automatically interferes with screen readers and is disorienting for many users. If you must autoplay, mute by default and provide controls.

How Accessibility Affects SEO

Accessibility and SEO overlap more than most teams realize. Alt text helps both screen readers and image search. Heading hierarchy improves both navigation and topical understanding. Semantic HTML provides ranking signals and assistive landmarks at the same time. Form labels improve usability and reduce abandonment.

Accessibility makes up 10% of your overall Website Grader score, but its real influence is wider - improvements here ripple into SEO, content, and even performance categories.

Quick Accessibility Wins

Most accessibility issues are not architectural - they are oversights that take minutes to fix. Declare your page language. Pair every form input with a clear label. Add alt text to every meaningful image and mark decorative ones as decorative. Mark up your navigation as a true navigation region. Add a "Skip to main content" link as the first focusable element. Audit your color contrast with any free contrast checker.

These six changes alone can move a site from a failing accessibility score to a passing one - often in under an hour of work.

Run Your Accessibility Audit Now

Enter your URL below to scan your site against seven core accessibility criteria - free, no signup, results in seconds. The Pro plan unlocks every check with detailed fix recommendations and copy-paste code so you can ship the changes the same day.