Accessibility on Landing Pages: Why It Matters and How to Get It Right

One in four adults in the United States lives with some form of disability. That includes people with visual impairments, motor limitations, hearing loss, and cognitive differences. When your landing page is inaccessible, you're not just creating an inconvenience for these visitors; you're locking them out entirely. And in many cases, you're also breaking the law.

But accessibility isn't only about compliance or reaching a specific population. Accessible landing pages are better landing pages, period. They're clearer, faster, easier to use, and more likely to convert every visitor, regardless of ability. Here's why accessibility matters and how to build it into your landing pages from the start.

The Case for Accessibility

The Legal Case

Web accessibility lawsuits have surged in recent years. In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has been interpreted by courts to apply to websites and digital services. The Department of Justice has explicitly stated that web accessibility is required under the ADA. Companies of all sizes (from multinational corporations to small businesses) have faced legal action for inaccessible websites.

In the European Union, the European Accessibility Act requires digital products and services to meet accessibility standards. Similar legislation exists in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and many other countries.

The cost of a lawsuit (legal fees, settlements, and mandatory remediation) far exceeds the cost of building accessibility in from the beginning.

The Moral Case

The web was designed to be universal. Tim Berners-Lee, who invented it, said: "The power of the web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect." When your landing page can't be used by someone with a disability, you're failing to uphold a core principle of the medium you're building on.

People with disabilities aren't edge cases. They're your customers, your colleagues, and your community members. Building accessible pages is simply the right thing to do.

The Business Case

Beyond legal risk and ethics, accessibility is good for business.

• Larger addressable market. The disability community and their families control significant spending power. In the US alone, the disposable income of working-age adults with disabilities exceeds $490 billion annually.
• Better user experience for everyone. Accessibility improvements (clearer text, better navigation, more logical layouts) benefit all users, not just those with disabilities. Curb cuts were designed for wheelchair users but are used by everyone with strollers, luggage, or delivery carts. The same principle applies to digital accessibility.
• Improved SEO. Many accessibility best practices overlap directly with SEO best practices. Proper heading structure, descriptive alt text, semantic HTML, and fast load times all help search engines understand and rank your content.
• Higher conversion rates. A page that is easier to navigate, easier to read, and easier to interact with converts better across every audience segment.

WCAG: The Standard You Need to Know

The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) are the internationally recognized standard for web accessibility. WCAG is organized around four principles, often remembered by the acronym POUR:

• Perceivable: Users must be able to perceive the information presented. Content can't be invisible to all of their senses.
• Operable: Users must be able to operate the interface. Navigation and interaction can't require actions a user can't perform.
• Understandable: Users must be able to understand the information and how to operate the interface.
• Robust: Content must be interpretable by a wide variety of user agents, including assistive technologies.

WCAG defines three conformance levels:

• Level A: The bare minimum. Addresses the most critical barriers.
• Level AA: The standard most organizations target and most legislation references. This is where you should aim.
• Level AAA: The highest level. It's not typically required but represents best-in-class accessibility.

For landing pages, targeting WCAG 2.1 Level AA will address the vast majority of accessibility needs.

Practical Accessibility Improvements for Landing Pages

Alt Text for Images

Every meaningful image on your landing page needs descriptive alt text. This text is read aloud by screen readers and displayed when images fail to load.

• Be specific and concise. Instead of "image" or "photo," write "Customer support dashboard showing real-time ticket metrics." Describe what the image communicates, not just what it depicts.
• Skip alt text for decorative images. If an image is purely decorative (a background pattern, a visual separator), use an empty alt attribute (alt="") so screen readers skip it entirely. This prevents cluttering the experience with irrelevant descriptions.
• Don't start with "Image of" or "Picture of." Screen readers already announce that the element is an image. Starting with these phrases is redundant.

Color Contrast

Insufficient color contrast is one of the most common accessibility failures on the web. If your text doesn't contrast enough with its background, visitors with low vision or color vision deficiency can't read it.

• Body text needs a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 against its background (WCAG AA standard).
• Large text (18px or larger, or 14px bold) needs at least 3:1.
• Interactive elements like links and form fields need at least 3:1 contrast against adjacent colors.

Common offenders include light gray text on white backgrounds, placeholder text in form fields, and text overlaid on photographs without a background overlay.

Use tools like the WebAIM Contrast Checker or the built-in accessibility audits in Chrome DevTools to test your color combinations. You can also run your page through Grademypage, which checks contrast ratios as part of its automated audit.

Keyboard Navigation

Not everyone uses a mouse. People with motor disabilities, power users, and anyone using assistive technology often navigate entirely with a keyboard. Your landing page must be fully functional without a mouse.

• Tab order must be logical. When a user presses Tab, focus should move through interactive elements in a natural reading order, typically left to right, top to bottom. Don't use positive tabindex values to rearrange the order unless absolutely necessary.
• All interactive elements must be reachable. Every link, button, form field, and interactive widget should be focusable and activatable via keyboard.
• Focus should never get trapped. If a modal dialog opens, focus should move into the modal and return to the triggering element when the modal closes. Users should never get stuck in a keyboard trap.

Focus Indicators

When users navigate with a keyboard, they need to see which element is currently focused. The default browser focus indicator (usually a blue outline) should never be removed without providing a replacement.

• Don't use outline: none without an alternative. This is one of the most common accessibility regressions in modern web design. If you remove the default outline for aesthetic reasons, replace it with a custom focus style that's equally or more visible.
• Make focus indicators high-contrast. A subtle change in background color isn't enough. Use a visible outline, ring, or border that stands out against the page background.
• Apply focus styles consistently across all interactive elements: buttons, links, form inputs, and custom components.

Screen Reader Compatibility

Screen readers translate visual content into spoken text or braille. For them to work correctly, your HTML needs to convey meaning, not just appearance.

• Use semantic HTML elements. A <button> is recognized as a button by screen readers. A <div> styled to look like a button isn't, unless you add ARIA roles and keyboard handlers, and even then, native elements are more reliable.
• Structure content with proper headings. Use <h1> through <h6> in order. Don't skip heading levels (going from H2 to H4, for example). Screen reader users frequently navigate by headings to get an overview of the page.
• Use ARIA labels sparingly and correctly. ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) attributes can provide additional context, but they should supplement semantic HTML, not replace it. An aria-label on an icon-only button tells screen readers what the button does.
• Announce dynamic content changes. If submitting a form shows a success message or an error without a page reload, use aria-live regions to ensure screen readers announce the change.

Form Labels and Inputs

Forms are where conversions happen on most landing pages. An inaccessible form is a broken conversion funnel.

• Every input must have a visible, associated label. Use the <label> element with a for attribute matching the input's id. Placeholder text isn't a substitute for a label; it disappears when the user starts typing and isn't reliably read by all screen readers.
• Group related fields with <fieldset> and <legend>. Radio buttons and checkboxes that share a question should be grouped so screen readers can announce the question context for each option.
• Provide clear error messages. When validation fails, identify which field has the error and explain how to fix it. Connect the error message to the field using aria-describedby so screen readers associate the message with the correct input.
• Use appropriate input types. type="email" for email fields, type="tel" for phone numbers, and type="url" for URLs. These trigger the correct keyboard on mobile devices and help browsers offer autofill.

Quick Wins to Improve Accessibility Today

If you're starting from scratch on accessibility, these changes will have the biggest immediate impact (or use the ultimate landing page checklist to audit your page end to end):

1. Add alt text to every meaningful image. Audit your page and write descriptive alt text for each image. Mark decorative images with alt="".
2. Check and fix color contrast. Run your page through a contrast checker and fix any text that falls below the 4.5:1 threshold.
3. Ensure all form fields have labels. This is a quick code change that dramatically improves form usability for screen reader users.
4. Restore focus indicators. If your CSS removes outlines on focused elements, add them back with a visible custom style.
5. Test with your keyboard. Unplug your mouse and try to complete the primary conversion action using only Tab, Enter, and arrow keys. Fix any places where you get stuck.
6. Add a skip navigation link. A hidden link that becomes visible on focus and jumps past the header navigation allows keyboard users to go straight to the main content.

How Accessibility Improves SEO

Search engines and screen readers have something fundamental in common: neither can see your page visually. Both rely on the underlying code to understand your content. This means that many accessibility improvements directly boost SEO performance.

• Descriptive alt text helps Google Image Search understand and index your images.
• Proper heading hierarchy helps search engines understand the structure and topical focus of your page.
• Semantic HTML provides clearer signals about content meaning and relationships.
• Fast load times (required for accessible experiences) are a confirmed Google ranking factor.
• Transcripts and captions for video content create indexable text that search engines can crawl.
• Descriptive link text (instead of "click here") helps search engines understand what the linked page is about.

Run an accessibility audit on Grademypage to see where your landing page stands and get specific recommendations for improvements that'll benefit both accessibility and search rankings.

Take Action

Accessibility isn't a feature you add at the end. It's a quality of well-built pages that benefits every visitor, expands your potential audience, protects you legally, and improves your search visibility. The overlap between accessible design and high-converting design is enormous; both prioritize clarity, usability, and removing friction.

Start with the quick wins: alt text, color contrast, form labels, focus indicators, and keyboard testing. These changes are straightforward to implement and immediately improve the experience for a significant portion of your audience. From there, work toward full WCAG 2.1 AA compliance as you iterate on your page.

Building accessibly from the start is always easier than retrofitting later. The fastest way to find out where your page stands right now is to run a quick audit.

Paste your URL into Grademypage and get your score in under a minute. It's free, no account required.