Site123 Accessibility Checklist 2026 | WCAG 2.1 AA Guide for Small Business
Last updated: 2026-04-18
Site123 is an entry-level website builder aimed at users who want to launch a small business website quickly without learning design or technical skills. Its guided wizard-style setup walks users through picking a template, filling in content, and publishing in minutes. This speed-first philosophy makes Site123 popular with tradespeople, local service providers, restaurants, freelancers, and hobbyists, but it also means the platform trades creative and technical flexibility for simplicity. That trade-off has real accessibility implications: users cannot easily edit the underlying HTML, the template library enforces specific structures that may not support every accessibility need, and the platform's form builder generates markup that sometimes falls short of WCAG requirements. Site123 also promotes itself as a multilingual-friendly platform with built-in site translation, but the resulting sites can have issues with the lang attribute, language switchers, and RTL language support. Small businesses using Site123 are not exempt from accessibility regulations. The European Accessibility Act, in force since June 2025, applies to consumer-facing e-commerce and service websites regardless of the platform they are built on. In the United States, ADA Title III complaints and demand letters continue to target small business websites of every size. This checklist walks through the most common accessibility problems on Site123 sites and offers practical fixes using the platform's available editing tools. Where a fix is not possible within Site123's constraints, the checklist notes that limitation clearly so you can plan around it.
Common Accessibility Issues
The Site123 image uploader does not force users to add alt text, and the alt text field is located in a secondary panel that many users overlook. For small business sites where images carry critical information, such as gallery photos of work samples, product photos, or team headshots, missing alt text means screen reader users cannot understand the site's offerings. The issue compounds on image-heavy templates like those used by photographers, real estate agents, and restaurants.
Click each image in your Site123 editor and open the Image Settings panel. Look for the Alt Text or ALT Description field and fill it with a short, factual description of the image. For photo galleries, describe the specific subject of each photo rather than using a generic label like 'gallery image'. For decorative background or divider images, enter a single space if the field does not allow a truly empty value. Audit every page of your site systematically using the site's page list.
Site123's built-in form builder defaults to using placeholder text inside input fields as the only indicator of what information is required. The moment a user starts typing, the placeholder disappears, leaving no visible or programmatically associated label. This creates problems for screen reader users, users with cognitive disabilities, and anyone who needs to verify what a field expected after they started typing.
In the form editor, enable the visible label option for every field, which places a label element above the input instead of only a placeholder. If your template does not offer a visible label option, use the Title field in the advanced form settings, which Site123 converts into an aria-label on the input. Keep placeholders as example hints rather than as the primary label, and include the required asterisk inside the label, not the placeholder.
Site123's multilingual feature adds a dropdown language switcher and generates translated versions of each page. However, the generated HTML does not always update the html lang attribute when a user switches languages, and in-page content that remains in its original language (such as brand names or untranslated buttons) lacks lang attribute markers. Screen readers then pronounce translated text using the wrong language's voice synthesizer, making it unintelligible.
Publish your Site123 site and inspect the HTML source for each language version. Confirm that the html element's lang attribute matches the current page language (e.g., lang='es' for Spanish pages). If it does not, contact Site123 support and ask them to correct the behavior, as this is generated outside the editor. Within the editor, wrap any spans of content that remain in a different language in an HTML element with a lang attribute using the custom HTML code block (available on paid plans).
The hamburger menu that appears on mobile viewports of Site123 sites is often implemented as a div with an onclick handler rather than a true button. Keyboard users cannot reach the menu with Tab, and even if they can, pressing Enter does not open it. This makes the entire navigation inaccessible to keyboard-only users on any device where the responsive breakpoint triggers the mobile layout.
Test the menu using a keyboard on a smaller viewport (resize the browser or use DevTools device emulation). If the menu does not open via keyboard, escalate the issue to Site123 support as it requires changes to their underlying theme code that are not exposed in the editor. As a temporary measure, ensure your main navigation links are also listed in the footer so keyboard users have an alternative path to navigate your site.
In some Site123 templates, section titles are created by styling paragraph text with larger font sizes and bold weights rather than using the built-in heading tool. The content looks like a heading but is actually a p element in the HTML. Screen reader users who navigate by headings skip right over these visual headings, and the page outline is incomplete.
Select each section title in the editor and use the text format dropdown (typically labeled with options like Heading 1, Heading 2, Paragraph) to promote it to the correct heading level. Use H2 for top-level sections below the page title, H3 for subsections. If a template uses a visual element that can't be promoted to a heading, consider switching to a template that exposes proper heading controls. Verify your changes using HeadingsMap on the published page.
Site123 supports embedding third-party widgets such as booking calendars, chat tools, review feeds, and social media streams through an HTML code block. These embedded widgets are provided by external services that have their own accessibility behavior, which Site123 cannot control. In practice, many small business sites accumulate several widgets that individually fail WCAG requirements (low contrast, missing labels, keyboard traps).
Before adding a third-party widget, check the provider's accessibility statement or documentation. Choose vendors that publish a VPAT or accessibility conformance report and confirm WCAG 2.1 AA conformance. Test any embedded widget using a keyboard and a screen reader before publishing. If a critical widget is inaccessible, add a text-based alternative path: for a booking widget, include a phone number or email; for a chat widget, provide a contact form.
Site123-Specific Tips
- Site123's editor does not expose most theme-level HTML or CSS, so some accessibility fixes are only possible through their support team or by switching templates. Document any platform-limited issues in your accessibility statement so users know you are aware.
- When choosing a template during the initial wizard, pick simpler designs with conventional top navigation and clear color contrast. Overly stylized templates tend to have more accessibility issues that you cannot fix in the editor.
- If your business requires a compliant contact or booking flow, consider building the key conversion form through a dedicated accessible form service (e.g., Tally, Fillout) and embedding it, rather than relying on Site123's built-in form for regulated interactions.
- Use Site123's SEO settings to provide a descriptive page title and meta description for every page. A clear page title is the first thing a screen reader announces, so treat it as an accessibility setting, not just an SEO one.
Recommended Tools
axe DevTools
A free browser extension that runs automated accessibility scans against your published Site123 pages. Useful for catching structural issues generated by the template that are not visible in the editor.
WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluator
A web-based and extension-based accessibility scanner that highlights issues directly on the page. Good for non-technical Site123 site owners because its visual icons are easier to interpret than a raw list of violations.
NVDA Screen Reader
A free, open-source screen reader for Windows. Walking through your Site123 site with NVDA reveals where forms, navigation, and image content fall short of what screen reader users need.
Further Reading
Other CMS Checklists
- Strikingly Accessibility Checklist
- Jimdo Accessibility Checklist
- Godaddy-website-builder Accessibility Checklist
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