Accessibility is not a separate version of your website
There is still a belief that an accessible website means a stripped-back "text only" page hidden behind a link in the footer. It does not. Accessibility means the site you already have works for people using a screen reader, navigating with a keyboard, zooming to 200%, or reading on a phone in bright sunlight with tired eyes.
That last group is larger than most owners expect, and it includes plenty of your customers. Most of the fixes that help them also help everyone else — clearer text, bigger tap targets, forms that explain what went wrong.
Does the law apply to you?
The European Accessibility Act has applied across the EU, Ireland included, since June 2025. It targets specific services rather than every website — eCommerce, consumer banking, e-books, transport and telecoms are the main ones — and microenterprises providing services (broadly, fewer than 10 staff and under €2 million turnover) are outside its service obligations. Public sector bodies were already covered by earlier rules.
So a two-person plumbing firm with a brochure site is in a very different position to a shop selling online. If you take payments on your website or you are past the microenterprise threshold, it is worth getting a definite answer rather than assuming. The technical benchmark referenced in practice is WCAG 2.1 level AA.
Either way, none of this is a reason to ignore the basics. The commercial argument stands on its own: a customer who cannot complete your booking form leaves.
The checks you can do this week
You do not need an audit to find the common problems. Try these on your own site:
- Unplug the mouse. Press Tab through a page. Can you reach every link, button and form field, and can you see where you are? If the focus outline is invisible, that is a CSS fix, not a rebuild.
- Check colour contrast. Light grey text on white is the single most common issue on small business sites. Any free contrast checker will tell you in seconds whether your body text and buttons pass.
- Look at your images. Photos that carry meaning need alt text describing what they show. Decorative ones should have empty alt text so screen readers skip them. "image1.jpg" helps nobody, including Google.
- Read your links out of context. "Click here" and "read more" tell a screen reader user nothing. "See our pricing" does.
- Zoom to 200%. Does the text reflow, or does the layout break and start hiding content?
- Break your own contact form. Submit it empty. Does it say which field is missing, in words, near the field? Or does it turn a box red and leave you guessing?
Fixing it without starting over
Almost everything above is a change to markup, styling or content — not architecture. On a WordPress site that usually means the theme's colour settings, some alt text housekeeping and a form plugin configured properly. On a custom build it is a focused development job measured in hours.
Avoid the overlay widgets that promise instant compliance from one line of JavaScript. They do not fix the underlying markup, they frequently interfere with the assistive technology people already use, and they have been the subject of complaints rather than a defence against them.
If your site is genuinely old and the structure is the problem, fold accessibility into the next redesign rather than patching indefinitely. Make it part of the brief, not an extra at the end.
Final thought
Start with the keyboard test, the contrast check and the contact form. Those three cover most of the real-world barriers on a typical Irish small business site, and they cost an afternoon rather than a project.