Something is happening right now that most creators don't know about, and it's worth a few minutes of your time.
Websites are getting sued for not being accessible to people with disabilities. Over 2,000 federal lawsuits were filed in just the first half of 2025 — a 37% jump over the previous year — and two thirds of those cases targeted small businesses. Settlements typically run between $5,000 and $75,000, not counting legal fees or the cost of fixing the site afterward.
The law behind this is Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Courts have consistently ruled that your website counts as a place of business, which means it needs to be usable by people who are blind, deaf, or have motor limitations. The DOJ recently formalized those requirements with new rules and compliance deadlines already in motion.
This isn't to alarm you. It's to make sure you know, because most creators are building and running sites without ever hearing about this.
What Accessibility Actually Looks Like
The most common violations are straightforward — images missing description text, low color contrast between your text and background, videos without captions, forms that aren't properly labeled. None of it is complicated. It just gets missed when nobody flags it.
Worth knowing: fixing these things also tends to improve your SEO. Google rewards clean structure, descriptive image text, and logical navigation — the same things accessibility standards require. One effort, two wins.
Check Your Site Right Now — It's Free
Go to wave.webaim.org and run your URL through their free tool. It's visual, easy to read, and shows you exactly where the gaps are. Google Chrome also has a built-in checker — right-click any page, hit Inspect, go to Lighthouse, run an accessibility audit. Aim for a score of 85 or higher.
Start with your images today. Add description text to every one — most website platforms have a dedicated field for this and it takes seconds per image. Caption your videos. Those two alone cover a huge percentage of common issues.
One Thing Worth Skipping
Overlay plugins marketed as instant compliance solutions don't work as advertised — and in 2025, over 456 lawsuits were filed specifically against sites that had them installed. Skip them and put that energy into actual fixes instead.
I'm not a lawyer and none of this is legal advice. But accessibility is worth getting right, and the good news is most of it isn't hard.
Have you ever checked your site for accessibility? Run the WAVE tool and drop what you find in the comments — curious what's showing up out there.