Beyond the homepage: is your website accessible wherever people land?

The homepage is often the most carefully designed page on a website. It introduces your organisation, builds trust, signposts people towards key information and creates an important first impression. Naturally, it’s also where many organisations begin their accessibility work.

That attention is still well placed, but the homepage isn’t always where someone’s experience of your website begins. Landing directly on an internal page isn’t new. Search engines have been taking people beyond the homepage for years. AI-powered search is pushing this further, with increasingly complex queries taking people directly to specific information deeper within a website. AudioEye’s 2026 Digital Accessibility Index shows just how significant this shift has become. Analysing more than 160,000 pages across 6,100 websites, the report found that nearly two-thirds of AI search traffic now lands on internal pages rather than the homepage. Those same pages contain around 10% more accessibility issues than homepages.

As more people arrive directly on the page most relevant to what they need, accessibility across the wider website becomes increasingly important.
 

For larger or more complex websites, achieving that doesn’t mean manually testing every individual page. A comprehensive accessibility review can combine automated checks with testing a selection of different pages, templates and key user journeys. This gives you a good picture of accessibility across the wider website, while focusing more closely on the areas people rely on most.

Running a site-wide accessibility audit doesn’t need to feel overwhelming. The seven steps below break it down, with practical tools and resources to help at each stage.
 

Before testing accessibility, take some time to understand the size and complexity of your website. Identify page templates, forms, downloadable documents, videos, third-party platforms and older content that users can still access. Having a clear picture of what’s there will help make sure nothing important gets overlooked.

Useful tools and resources 

• Screaming Frog SEO Spider (Free up to 500 URLs) - This tool will crawl your website and create a list of your pages, files and content. It’s free for websites with up to 500 URLs.
• Your XML sitemap - A simple way to identify the pages search engines can access and check you haven't missed any important content.
• Your CMS (content management system) - Use your content management system to identify the pages, documents and other content that make up your website.
   

Using these three resources together should give you a good understanding of the content that exists across your website and what’s visible to search engines and AI systems.
 

Use analytics and search data to see which pages people land on most often. This will help you understand where people are actually entering your website and which pages may need more attention when reviewing accessibility.

Useful tools and resources 

• Google Analytics 4 - See where users enter your website and prioritise those pages for review.
• Google Search Console - Identify the pages people find through search and understand which content is most visible.

While every page on your website is important, use this exercise to identify the pages and content most likely to drive relevant traffic and enquiries. These are good pages to prioritise as part of your accessibility review.

Many websites are built using reusable templates and components, which can make tackling accessibility issues much more manageable. If the same issue appears across a page template, fixing it once could improve tens or even hundreds of pages at the same time.

Start by looking at the elements that appear across your website, such as templates, navigation, forms, search tools, cards and accordions. Fixing issues here can have a much bigger impact before you move on to individual content pages.

Useful tools and resources

• WAVE Evaluation Tool - Quickly identify common accessibility issues and understand the accessibility of different page templates.
• Axe DevTools - Test pages and components for accessibility issues directly in your browser.
• Microsoft Accessibility Insights - Combine automated checks with guided manual testing to investigate accessibility issues in more detail.

Be mindful that an individual page might pass an automated accessibility check, but that doesn’t mean someone can complete a full journey without encountering barriers.

Try completing some of the most important journeys on your website using only a keyboard and, where possible, a screen reader. This could include making a purchase or donation, booking an event, signing up for membership or submitting an enquiry. Testing these journeys from start to finish can help you spot barriers that individual page checks might miss.

Useful tools and resources 

• NVDA Screen Reader (Windows) - Experience your website using a free screen reader for Windows.
• VoiceOver (built into macOS and iOS) - Test accessibility using Apple's built-in screen reader for macOS and iOS.
• WebAIM Keyboard Accessibility Guide – Learn how to carry out keyboard-only accessibility testing.

Many accessibility barriers are introduced by everyday content updates rather than development changes. Review headings, alternative text, link wording, PDFs, videos, tables and images containing important information. Good accessibility depends on the content you publish as well as how your website is built.

Useful tools and resources

• WAVE Evaluation Tool - Review headings, page structure, alternative text and other common accessibility issues on individual pages.
• Microsoft Word Accessibility Checker - Check documents for accessibility issues before exporting them as PDFs.
• Adobe Acrobat Accessibility Checker - Identify accessibility issues within PDF documents before publishing.

Not every accessibility issue needs the same level of attention. Prioritise anything that prevents users from completing essential tasks, followed by problems affecting high-traffic journeys and reusable components. A keyboard trap in a donation form should take precedence over a decorative image missing alternative text.

Useful tools and resources 

• WCAG 2.2 - Understand the recognised standards used to assess website accessibility.
• W3C Website Accessibility Evaluation Methodology (WCAG-EM) - Follow a structured approach to evaluating accessibility across a website.

Accessibility should be something you revisit regularly. Decide how often you’re going to review it, with a more comprehensive review at least every three years, and build it into content publishing, quality assurance, design systems and procurement. Regular reviews, clear ownership and ongoing training will help prevent barriers returning as your website evolves.

Useful tools and resources 

• W3C Accessibility Resources - Access practical guidance, tutorials and best practice for maintaining accessible websites.
• GOV.UK Accessibility Guidance - Understand UK accessibility requirements and how to embed accessibility into everyday processes.
• Consider a specialist audit - Periodic independent reviews can uncover barriers that automated and internal testing may miss.

The tools above can help you monitor accessibility over time, while a specialist audit can provide a more complete picture through automated and manual testing.

Understanding accessibility across an entire website can feel like a big task, especially when content has grown over many years and multiple teams are involved in managing it.

We work with organisations to review accessibility across their whole website. From site-wide accessibility audits and user journey testing to longer-term planning, the aim is to identify the barriers that matter most and give you a clear understanding of where to focus your efforts.

If you’re not sure where to start, get in touch with the Ten4 team. We’d be happy to talk it through with you.



References
AbilityNet 2025 – Attitudes to Digital Accessibility 2025, AudioEye 2026 -  Digital Accessibility Index