Most site owners know accessibility matters. Far fewer know where to actually start. The good news is there is a logical order to this work, and you do not have to do it all at once. Here are seven steps that take you from zero to a genuinely more accessible site, in a sequence that makes sense.
Step 1: Run a Free Audit First
Before you fix anything, you need to see what you’re dealing with. WAVE by WebAIM is a free browser tool that scans any public-facing page and flags accessibility errors, warnings, and structural issues visually. Run it on your homepage, your most-visited page, and any page with a form or checkout flow. This gives you a real baseline — not a guess — and tells you where the biggest problems are before you spend a minute or a dollar on fixes.
Step 2: Fix the Structural Problems in Your Code
Some accessibility issues live in your source code and cannot be addressed any other way. The most common ones: incorrect or missing heading hierarchy, low-contrast text defined in your CSS, unlabeled form fields, and interactive elements that cannot be reached by keyboard. These require a developer. Start with the issues flagged as errors in your audit, not warnings. If you want to understand the difference between what a developer fixes and what a widget handles, our breakdown of widget vs remediation explains exactly where the line sits.
Step 3: Install an Accessibility Widget for Immediate Impact
Structural fixes take time. While that work is underway, a user-facing accessibility widget gives real visitors real controls right now. Contrast adjustments, text-to-speech, dyslexia-friendly fonts, font size controls, animation pause, all of these go live in minutes, without touching your code. AccessPro installs on WordPress, Shopify, Wix, and Squarespace in under two minutes and gives your visitors over 25 accessibility controls immediately. It does not replace the code-level work from Step 2, but it closes the user-facing gap while that work happens. What the widget can and cannot do is worth reading if you want the honest picture of both sides.
Step 4: Sort Out Your Image Alt Text
Missing alt text is consistently one of the top WCAG failures across the web. Every meaningful image on your site needs a description that tells screen reader users what they are seeing. For large sites with image libraries, this is where AI helps. AccessPro’s AI alt tag generation handles this automatically as part of the widget, describing images in real time for screen reader users even when the original markup is missing the attribute. For images in your source code, add alt attributes directly in your HTML or CMS.
Step 5: Test With Actual Assistive Technology
Automated tools catch roughly 30 to 40 percent of accessibility issues. The rest only surface when you actually navigate your site the way a disabled user would. Download NVDA (free, Windows) or use VoiceOver (built into Mac and iOS) and try to complete a task on your own site with your eyes closed. Tab through your navigation. Try to fill in a form. Try to understand an image-heavy page. What you find in ten minutes of real testing will show you problems no audit tool flagged.
Step 6: Write Your Accessibility Statement Properly
An accessibility statement is not a legal formality to generate and forget. It should describe what you have actually done, what known issues remain, which standards you are working toward, and how users can contact you if they hit a barrier. AccessPro includes an accessibility statement template as part of every plan, it is a starting point, not a finished product. Fill it in with your actual remediation actions and the specific standards your site is working toward. A statement that reflects genuine effort is far more useful than a boilerplate page that says nothing.
Step 7: Build Regular Reviews Into Your Workflow
Accessibility is not a project you complete. Every new page, every plugin update, every redesigned section is a potential new issue. Set a calendar reminder for a quarterly WAVE scan on your key pages. Any time you make a significant content or design change, run the scan again. AccessPro updates automatically as standards evolve, so the widget layer stays current without extra work on your end. The code layer needs your attention at regular intervals. For a clear picture of how standards are changing and what WCAG 2.2 added over previous versions, our WCAG comparison guide covers every version in plain language.
Web accessibility is not a single task. It is a set of layers, structural fixes, user-facing controls, tested experience, and ongoing maintenance, that build on each other. Start with the audit, move through the steps in order, and do not wait until everything is perfect to take the first one. A site that is actively working on accessibility is already doing more than most.