Beyond "I Have One": Some Business Websites Alienate and Exclude Their Best Customers

Go to any populated area, and you'll notice something interesting. Parking spaces reserved for people who have a hard time getting around. Bathrooms with handrails to help people with balance and strength issues. Ramps offered in addition to stairs, elevators in addition to escalators.

We do these things because we understand not everyone has the same experience or abilities. To make our public places easier for others to enjoy, we make them "accessible." This means doing what we can to reasonably accommodate people who have mobility, sight, hearing, or other physical issues which impact their experience.

Websites are the same.

Your website is a public space. People visit it to learn about your business, contact you, maybe book a service. And just like a physical storefront, not everyone experiences it the same way.

Some visitors can't see your images. Some can't use a mouse. Some need higher contrast to read your text. Some can't hear your videos.

Making a website accessible means building it so these visitors can still use it. Still get the information. Still become customers.

There's even a set of standards for this: guidelines that spell out what "accessible" means for the web. They're called the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG. The version most people follow is WCAG 2.1, Level AA.

In this post, we'll look at what accessibility means for your website and who it helps. But we're also going to cover something you might not expect: the business benefits.

Beyond being the right thing to do, accessibility also improves:

• Website design: accessible sites tend to be cleaner, clearer, and easier for everyone to use
• Search engine and AI visibility: the same things that help screen readers also help Google and AI tools find and understand your content
• Market reach: 1 in 4 adults has some form of disability. That's a lot of potential customers you might be missing.

Let's start with who accessibility actually helps, and how.

Who Accessibility Helps

If you don't have a disability, you may not know how many people use built-in browser settings to improve their experience. Do you ever make the text bigger to read it? That works better when sites are built with accessibility in mind.

My wife works with children that experience the world differently, and you would not believe the technology available to help them. Screen readers that say out loud what's on a website. Voice-to-text inputs. Some browsers are specially designed to take what's on a site and put it into a format people can work with better. It's amazing tech.

But this tech is not magic. It needs websites that meet certain standards to be able to work.

The way we build websites impacts how well these assistive tools work for people.

Think of what people need to do to use the internet:

• Read small text
• Manipulate a mouse and click on buttons, drop-downs, fields
• Type on a keyboard with tiny keys or hold a phone and type on screen
• Watch and listen to videos, see images, diagrams, memes... everything

Any physical deficit in seeing, hearing, or using your hands means the internet feels challenging and frustrating.

And here's something else: even if you don't need accessibility features right now, that can change.

Break your arm skateboarding? Suddenly you can't use a mouse for six weeks. Eye surgery? Screen glare is brutal for a month. Holding a baby or a cup of coffee? You're down to one hand.

Or think longer term. Forty years from now, your hands might be shaky. Your vision might not be what it was. Hearing fades. The internet doesn't get easier with age, unless websites are built to accommodate.

Accessibility isn't just for "other people." It's for all of us, at different points in our lives.

Now that we see how the number of people impacted might be pretty big, let's talk about what this means for your business.

The Business Case for Accessibility

Better Website Design

Here's something funny about accessibility requirements: they force you to build better websites.

Accessible sites tend to be cleaner. Faster. Easier to navigate. Less cluttered.

The constraints push you toward clarity. And clarity converts better.

A visitor who can easily find your phone number, read your services, and fill out your contact form is more likely to become a customer. That's true whether they're using a screen reader or not.

Search Engine and AI Visibility

Google can't see your images. Neither can ChatGPT or other AI tools.

They read your site the same way a screen reader does: by looking at the text, the structure, and the descriptions you provide.

The practice of making your site easier for search engines to find and understand is called SEO, or Search Engine Optimization. There's also a newer term floating around: AI-SEO, which is about making your site easier for AI tools to parse and recommend. Whether that term sticks, who knows. But the practice matters.

Here's the good news: accessibility and SEO overlap heavily.

When you add alt text to images, you're not just helping blind users. You're telling Google what that image is. When you use proper layouts and structure, you're not just helping screen readers navigate; you're helping search engines understand your content hierarchy.

The overlap between "accessible" and "SEO-friendly" is huge:

• Descriptive page titles
• Proper heading structure
• Alt text on images
• Transcripts for videos
• Fast-loading pages
• Mobile-friendly layouts
• Clear, readable text

Do these for accessibility, and you get SEO benefits for free. Do them for SEO, and you get accessibility benefits for free.

As AI-powered search becomes more common, this matters even more. AI tools are summarizing and recommending websites based on how well they can understand the content. Sites built with accessibility in mind are easier for AI to parse and recommend.

Market Reach

About 1 in 4 adults has some form of disability. That's roughly 25% of the population.

If your website doesn't work for them, you're leaving money on the table.

This isn't abstract. These are real people looking for HVAC repair, plumbing services, roofing quotes, whatever you do. If they can't navigate your site, they'll find a competitor who built theirs better.

And remember: it's not just permanent disabilities. It's the person with a broken wrist. The new parent holding a baby. The older customer whose vision isn't what it used to be.

Building an accessible site means building a site that works for more people. More people means more potential customers.

Recap

• Accessibility means building websites that work for people with different abilities: vision, hearing, mobility, and more
• Assistive technology like screen readers needs sites built to certain standards to work properly
• Even if someone doesn't need accessibility features now, they might later; broken arms and aging happen, or you could just be holding a baby
• Accessible sites tend to be cleaner, faster, and easier to use for everyone
• The same things that help screen readers also help Google and AI tools find your content
• Making your site accessible is the right thing to do AND it's good for your business

What You Can Do Right Now

Want to see where your site stands? Try this:

Open your website. Now press the Tab key repeatedly. Can you navigate through the page? Can you tell where you are? Can you get to your contact form and submit it without touching your mouse?

If you got stuck, confused, or couldn't complete basic tasks, that's what keyboard-only users experience every time they visit.

Questions to Ask Your Web Person

If you work with a developer or agency, here are questions worth asking:

• Is our site WCAG 2.1 AA compliant?
• Have we tested with a screen reader?
• Do all our images have alt text?
• Does our color contrast meet accessibility standards?
• Can someone complete our contact form using only a keyboard?

You don't need to understand the technical details. But you should know whether anyone has checked.