Who this is for
This guide is for Canadian small business owners, sole proprietors, and small teams who manage their own website or work with a freelance developer. If you have a service page, a contact form, a few product pages, and not much budget for a full accessibility audit, this is a practical starting point.
What to check first
Start with the pages your customers actually use most: your homepage, contact page, and key service or product pages. Run each through a first-pass check and fix obvious issues before worrying about edge cases.
- Page structure: Does every page have a unique title and one clear main heading?
- Images: Do your images have meaningful descriptions? Decorative images should be marked so screen readers ignore them.
- Forms: Does every form field have a visible label? Can people submit your contact form with the keyboard alone?
- Links and buttons: Do links describe where they go? Avoid vague text like "click here" or "learn more."
- Contrast: Is text easy to read against the background? Light grey text on white is hard to read for many people.
Common accessibility issues on small business sites
- Missing alt text on images: Product photos, team headshots, and service images often lack descriptions. Screen reader users cannot tell what is in the picture.
- Unlabeled contact forms: Form fields without visible labels make it hard or impossible to fill out the form with assistive technology.
- Missing page language: If the page does not declare a language, screen readers may use the wrong pronunciation.
- Low contrast text: Small text in light grey, beige, or pastel colours is hard to read for many users, especially on mobile screens.
- Vague link text: Links that say "click here" or "read more" do not help someone navigating by link list understand where each link goes.
What automated checks can help with
Use the SiteCheck Canada website accessibility checker to scan one page at a time. It can find missing alt text, missing form labels, empty buttons, missing page language, heading problems, duplicate IDs, missing iframe titles, and some contrast issues. Each finding links to the accessibility issue library with plain-English fix guidance.
Use the Canadian website accessibility checklist to plan manual review after the automated scan.
What still needs human review
Automated checks cannot tell whether your alt text is actually useful, whether your site works with a keyboard, whether your PDFs are accessible, or whether your content is clear enough for someone using a screen reader. A real person—you, a team member, or a qualified reviewer—still needs to test these things.
Suggested workflow for small business
- Pick 2–3 important pages: homepage, contact page, and one service page.
- Run each through the website accessibility checker.
- Fix critical and major issues first. Most of these are quick fixes: add alt text, add form labels, fix heading structure.
- Use the accessibility statement generator to create a draft that honestly reflects your current status.
- Read what automated checkers miss to understand what still needs manual review.
- Get qualified review if your organization has legal, procurement, or contractual accessibility obligations.
Useful SiteCheck Canada tools
- Website accessibility checker — scan one page at a time
- Canadian website accessibility checklist — manual review path
- Accessibility statement generator — draft honest statement copy
- Accessibility issue library — understand common scanner findings
- What automated checkers miss — set realistic expectations