Publishing an accessibility statement

A published statement is the cheapest compliance artefact you can produce and the first thing a regulator looks for. It is also the one place where honesty is legally safer than optimism.

What it must contain

1. The standard you are measuring against, with its level — for example WCAG 2.2 Level AA.
2. Your conformance status: fully, partially, or not conformant. Partially is the honest answer for most sites.
3. A specific list of the content that is not yet accessible, and why.
4. The date of the assessment and the method used — self-assessment or third-party audit.
5. A feedback route: an email address or form, with a stated response time.
6. The escalation route, where national law requires one.

Writing one with the statement generator

On the Pro and Business plans, open Sites, choose the site, then Accessibility statement. A guided form asks for:

• your organisation and the website the statement covers;
• the standard you measure against and the conformance status you have assessed — fully, partially or not conformant, or not assessed yet;
• how you assessed it (self-assessment or a third-party audit) and the known limitations, one per line, with any alternative way to get the same content;
• what you do about accessibility, and whether to describe how SiteAccessible is used on the site;
• a feedback contact and the number of working days you commit to answering within;
• the enforcement body for your country, if there is one;
• the statement's language — English, Azerbaijani or Turkish — and its date.

We host the result on a public page on siteaccessible.com (siteaccessible.com/statement/ followed by an id of its own, so rotating the site key never breaks a link you put in your footer) and, if the widget has no statement link yet, set that page as its link so visitors can reach it from the panel. Unpublishing takes the page down until you publish again. You can also copy the HTML and publish it on your own domain. The structure follows the EU model accessibility statement (Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1523), which EN 301 549 and most European Accessibility Act guidance point to.

On the Standard plan, write the statement yourself using the list above, publish it on your own site, and paste its address into the site's settings so the widget links to it.

Keeping it current

Review it whenever you ship a significant change, and at least once a year. Date every revision — a statement with a stale date is the first thing a reviewer questions.