WordPress accessibility checker

Check your WordPress site for accessibility problems, then fix them in the WordPress editor with the steps below. No code needed for most of them.

Accessibility on WordPress

WordPress sites are built from a theme plus plugins, often made by different developers, so how accessible a site is depends on which ones it uses. Themes in the WordPress.org directory tagged “Accessibility Ready” have been reviewed against WordPress's accessibility guidelines, which is a good start but not a guarantee for your content.

How to fix common problems in WordPress

Menus change over time. If a step doesn't match what you see, search the WordPress help centre for the words in quotes.

Describe your images

  1. In your dashboard, go to Pages (or Posts) and click Edit on the page.
  2. Click the image. In the Block settings panel on the right, fill in “Alternative text”.
  3. For images used on many pages, also set it once in Media › Library: click the image and fill in “Alternative Text”.
  4. Click Update to publish.

Change your colours

  1. Block themes: go to Appearance › Editor › Styles › Colors and change the text, background and link colours.
  2. Classic themes: go to Appearance › Customize › Colors.
  3. For a single block, click it and change its colours under the Styles (half-moon) tab in the sidebar.

Use proper headings

  1. Edit the page and click the text that acts as a section title.
  2. In the block toolbar, click the block icon and choose “Heading”, then pick H2, H3… from the toolbar.
  3. Keep levels in order: H1 is the page title, then H2 for sections, H3 for sub-sections.
  4. Click Update.

Reword your links

  1. Edit the page and select the words of the link.
  2. Type new wording that says where it goes, like “Read our returns policy”.
  3. For Button blocks, click the button and change its text the same way. Click Update.

Label your form fields

  1. Open your forms plugin (WPForms, Contact Form 7, Gravity Forms, Forminator…).
  2. Edit the form and give every field a Label. Turn off any “Hide label” option.
  3. Contact Form 7: wrap each field in a <label> tag with its name, like <label>Your email [email your-email]</label>.
  4. Save the form.

Give each page a title

  1. Your page's title comes from the title at the top of the editor and the Site Title in Settings › General.
  2. If you use an SEO plugin (Yoast SEO, Rank Math…), scroll below the editor and fill in its “SEO title” for each page.
  3. Click Update.

Set your site language

  1. Go to Settings › General.
  2. Choose the right “Site Language” and click Save Changes.

Stop links opening new tabs

  1. Edit the page and click the link.
  2. In the link popup, click the pencil (Edit) and switch off “Open in new tab”.
  3. Click Update.

Stop things playing or moving on their own

  1. Edit the page and click the video or audio block.
  2. In the block settings, switch off “Autoplay”.
  3. For slider plugins, turn off “Autoplay” in the slider's settings.

Add captions to videos

  1. Add captions (subtitles) to every video with speech.
  2. For YouTube videos, add them in YouTube Studio › Subtitles; for Vimeo, in the video's Distribution › Subtitles settings.
  3. Check automatic captions and correct any mistakes.

Problems the editor can't fix

Some problems are in the theme's code, like menus you can't use with a keyboard or focus outlines that don't show. Your Alleviator report marks these, and writes a message you can send to the developer of your WordPress theme (Appearance › Themes shows who made it), or your web host, with the pages and details they need. If someone else built your site, you can send them a developer link with time estimates, or ask us to fix it for you.

Check your WordPress site

Scan a page for free. No card needed.

Scan my siteSee an example report

WordPress is a trademark of its owner. Alleviator isn't made or endorsed by WordPress.