When you’re building a WordPress site, most of your testing is visual — checking how pages look, whether images load, whether the layout holds on different screen sizes. What rarely gets checked is whether a visitor using a screen reader can navigate the content, whether someone with low vision can read your text without squinting, or whether the contact form works without a mouse.
Those gaps are what accessibility is about. The goal is a site that works for visitors with visual, auditory, motor, or cognitive differences — not just those who happen to be using the same setup you tested with. And the baseline fixes are far simpler than most beginners expect.
Most of what makes a WordPress site accessible is built into the block editor and your theme settings. You don’t need a specialist plugin or a developer to get the fundamentals right.
Quick Answer
To make a WordPress website accessible, focus on heading structure, image alt text, colour contrast, labelled form fields, and descriptive link text. For beginners, these five areas cover the most common issues and can all be addressed directly in the block editor and your theme’s global styles without writing any code.
Why Accessibility Matters
Accessibility is both a usability improvement and, for some sites, a legal consideration. Around one in five people has a disability that affects how they use the web — but the improvements you make for that group also benefit visitors on slow connections, older devices, and small screens.
Search engines read pages the same way screen readers do: by heading hierarchy, alt text on images, and the descriptive quality of link text. Improving accessibility often improves how your content is understood and ranked.
The international standard is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), published by the W3C. WCAG 2.1 Level AA is the benchmark most sites aim for. If you’re building sites for the public sector, education, or enterprise clients, meeting this standard may be a contractual requirement.
How to Improve WordPress Accessibility: Step by Step
Step 1 — Get Your Heading Structure Right
Your page title is automatically the H1 — WordPress handles that. What you control is everything below it: H2 for main sections, H3 for sub-sections within those. The mistake beginners make is using heading levels to change font size. “H3 looks about right here” is not a valid reason to choose a heading level.
Screen readers use heading structure to let users jump between sections. If headings skip levels or are used for styling rather than structure, navigation breaks down for anyone relying on assistive technology. See how to use heading tags properly in WordPress for a full breakdown of common mistakes and how to fix them.
Step 2 — Add Alt Text to Every Meaningful Image
Alt text is the description screen readers read aloud when they reach an image, and what appears when an image fails to load. Every image that communicates something — product photos, diagrams, screenshots, infographics — needs descriptive alt text.
In WordPress, go to Media → Library, open the image, and add alt text in the right-hand panel. In the block editor, you can also set it directly in the block sidebar when inserting an image. Write what’s actually in the image, in the context of the surrounding content. Decorative images — dividers, background textures, purely visual spacing — should have empty alt text, which tells screen readers to skip them entirely.
Step 3 — Check Colour Contrast
Your text needs to be visually distinct from its background. WCAG 2.1 AA requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal body text, and 3:1 for large text (18px or larger, or bold at 14px+).
Use the WebAIM Contrast Checker to test your colour combinations — paste in your text colour and background colour to see the ratio. Pay particular attention to links inside body text, text on coloured buttons, and any text placed over images or coloured backgrounds. Low contrast is one of the most common issues I see on new sites, often because the brand colour palette was chosen without checking legibility against a white background.
Step 4 — Write Descriptive Link Text
“Click here” and “read more” tell a screen reader user nothing about where a link goes. These phrases are read out of context — someone scanning a page with a screen reader hears a list of link labels, not the surrounding sentences.
Write link text that describes the destination: “how to choose a WordPress theme” rather than “read more”. Apply the same principle to buttons — “Get your free quote” communicates far more than “Submit”.
Step 5 — Label Form Fields Properly
Placeholder text — the greyed-out hint inside a form field — disappears as soon as someone starts typing. It also doesn’t work reliably with all screen readers. Every form field needs a visible label above or beside it that stays in place throughout the interaction.
In most WordPress contact form plugins, labels are enabled by default. Check that they’re turned on, that error messages are descriptive, and that required fields are clearly marked. If you haven’t built your form yet, see how to create a contact form in WordPress for a step-by-step walkthrough covering plugin setup and field configuration.
Step 6 — Test Keyboard Navigation
Keyboard navigation matters for visitors who can’t use a mouse — whether due to motor impairments, temporary injuries, or device limitations. Press Tab to move through your site and confirm you can reach every menu item, link, and form field without touching a mouse.
The focus indicator — the visible outline showing which element is currently selected — must remain visible at all times. Some themes suppress it with outline: none in their CSS for aesthetic reasons. If yours has done this, it silently breaks keyboard accessibility and is worth fixing in a child theme.
Step 7 — Test on Mobile
Mobile usability and accessibility overlap significantly. A site that passes contrast checks on desktop can still have elements that overlap or become unreadable on a small screen. Test on an actual phone, not just a browser resize tool. For a full mobile checklist, see how to create a mobile-friendly WordPress website.
Practical Tips
- Consistent layouts are inherently more accessible. The more predictable your site’s structure, the easier it is to navigate without relying on visual cues alone.
- Never use colour alone to convey meaning. If an error state is shown only in red, add a text label or icon alongside it.
- I usually recommend reviewing accessibility during the build rather than retrofitting it — heading structure and form labels are far easier to get right from the start.
- Many well-maintained WordPress themes, including the default Twenty Twenty-Four, are built with WCAG compliance in mind. Check your theme’s documentation or release notes.
Common Mistakes
Using headings for visual styling. If you’re choosing H3 because it looks the right size, adjust font size in your theme settings instead. Heading levels communicate page structure, not visual scale.
Skipping alt text on meaningful images. Every image that communicates something needs a description. “Photo of product” is better than nothing, but “close-up of brushed stainless steel water bottle with black lid” is actually useful to a visitor who can’t see it.
Treating placeholder text as a label. Placeholder text disappears on input. Visible labels don’t. Always use real labels on form fields.
Removing focus indicators. If you’re editing your theme’s CSS and come across outline: none, leave it alone unless you’re replacing it with a custom focus style. Removing it silently breaks keyboard navigation for anyone who can’t use a mouse.
When Plugins Help
If you want a structured audit of your site’s current accessibility state, Accessibility Checker by Equalize Digital can scan posts and pages and flag issues automatically. It’s useful for larger sites where manual review is impractical.
No plugin fixes accessibility problems for you — it identifies them. The improvements still need to be made in your content, theme, and form settings. Think of it as a diagnostic tool, not a solution.
If you’re still in the early stages of building, the step-by-step guide to building a WordPress website covers accessibility alongside every other aspect of launching a new site from scratch.
Conclusion
Start with heading structure, image alt text, and colour contrast — these three areas fix the most common accessibility problems on new WordPress sites. Once those are in place, work through form labels and link text. None of these changes require specialist tools or developer involvement, and all of them make the site better for every visitor.
Etienne Basson works with website systems, SEO-driven site architecture, and technical implementation. He writes practical guides on building, structuring, and optimizing websites for long-term growth.