WordPress Accessibility and Indexing Fixes That Actually Matter

On an enterprise WordPress site we worked on, the job was a mix of building and cleaning up: a custom Elementor widget with AJAX loading and a mobile accordion, fixes to why pages were not being indexed, and accessibility remediation, mostly alt text and link text. The same few problems come up on almost every WordPress site, so here they are with the fixes.

1. Write alt text for the reader who cannot see the image

Alt text is read aloud by screen readers and used by search engines. Describe what the image is for on that page, in a short sentence.

• A chart of monthly sales: "Bar chart showing sales rising each month from January to June".
• A decorative divider: leave the alt text empty so screen readers skip it.
• A logo that links home: "Company name, home".

Avoid "image of" and file names like IMG_2043.jpg. In WordPress, set alt text in the media library so it is reused, and check it again where the image is placed.

2. Make every link make sense on its own

Screen reader users often jump through a list of all the links on a page. A list of "Click here", "Read more" and "Learn more" tells them nothing. Write link text that says where it goes: "Read the 2025 annual report", "See membership prices". The same text also gives search engines a better idea of the destination.

3. Build accordions that work from the keyboard

An accordion is a button that shows or hides a panel. Build it that way:

<h3>
  <button type="button" aria-expanded="false" aria-controls="panel-1">Opening hours</button>
</h3>
<div id="panel-1" hidden>Monday to Friday, 9 to 5.</div>

Use a real <button>, update aria-expanded when it opens and closes, and make sure it can be reached and toggled with the keyboard. A clickable <div> fails all three. If you build a custom widget in Elementor, test it by putting your mouse away and using only the Tab and Enter keys.

4. Do not hide important content behind AJAX

Loading content after the page opens (AJAX) makes a page feel faster, but search engines and some assistive tools may only see what the server sent first. If your key text appears only after a script runs, it may not be indexed. Put the important content in the page itself, and use AJAX for the extras. Then check the result with the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console, which shows the rendered page Google saw.

5. Check what Google actually indexed

Do not assume. In Search Console, the Pages report tells you which URLs are indexed and gives a reason for each that is not: blocked, duplicate, redirected, or "crawled, not indexed". Fix the reasons one group at a time, then request validation. Also make sure your sitemap lists the pages you want indexed and nothing else.

Fix them in this order

1. Run through your ten most important pages with the keyboard only.
2. Fix alt text and link text on those pages.
3. Check indexing in Search Console and fix the largest group of excluded pages.
4. Repeat for the next ten pages.

You do not need to fix everything at once. A handful of pages done properly beats a whole site done badly.

Need an accessibility and SEO clean-up on a WordPress site? Talk to Paraline Tech. The project behind this article is the NALC WordPress case study.