For the globally with vision impairments and the who have disabilities, these changes represent long-overdue progress. For businesses, they represent both a compliance challenge and a competitive opportunity.

We’ve created a comprehensive e-book, “Web Accessibility Standards in the UK and EU: What Businesses Need to Know”, to help you navigate these web accessibility changes in 2025 with confidence.

What you’ll discover in our free e-book

New requirements that affect your business

The EAA represents one of the most comprehensive accessibility initiatives globally, with requirements affecting both public and private organisations across all EU member states. Unlike previous regulations that primarily targeted public sector bodies, the EAA explicitly includes private businesses, particularly those providing services to the public.

Key regulatory changes include:

• WCAG 2.1 AA standards are becoming the recommended compliance level across EU member states
• Expanded coverage to private sector organisations, including e-commerce platforms
• Elimination of size exemptions 鈥� small and medium enterprises must also ensure digital accessibility
• Clear enforcement mechanisms with varying approaches from warnings to substantial financial penalties

Who must comply?

While larger enterprises may face more comprehensive requirements, SMEs must also ensure their digital properties meet accessibility standards. If you’re serving the public, regardless of your company size, compliance is likely required.

High-risk sectors include:

• E-commerce companies: 77% of US ADA website accessibility lawsuits targeted e-commerce sites
• Financial services: Secure transaction processes must maintain both security and accessibility standards
• Healthcare and life sciences: Medical information must be accessible to users with various disabilities
• Technology companies: User interfaces and documentation present complex accessibility challenges

The cost of non-compliance

The consequences extend far beyond potential fines. Website accessibility lawsuits are growing, with legal precedent increasingly favouring users who encounter accessibility barriers.

Beyond legal risks, non-compliance creates:

• Brand reputation damage: In an era where inclusion matters to consumers, accessibility failures significantly impact brand image
• Lost revenue opportunities: People with disabilities represent 20% of website visitors with substantial purchasing power
• Competitive disadvantage: Search engines like Google incorporate accessibility factors into ranking algorithms
• Recruitment challenges: Top talent increasingly seeks employers who demonstrate a commitment to inclusion

Technical requirements made simple

Our e-book breaks down the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 AA standards into actionable requirements organised around four fundamental principles, known as POUR:

• Perceivable: Information must be presentable in ways all users can perceive
• Operable: User interfaces must be operable by all users, including keyboard navigation
• Understandable: Information and interface operation must be clear and predictable
• Robust: Content must work reliably with assistive technologies

Mobile and multilingual accessibility challenges

As mobile usage continues growing, mobile accessibility becomes increasingly critical, and our e-book covers the mobile accessibility considerations organisations may want to take into account. For businesses operating internationally, we address the complex intersection of multilingual content and accessibility requirements.

How Sandberg bridges the language-accessibility gap

At Sandberg, we understand that accessibility and language access are interconnected challenges. Businesses operating in multiple countries must ensure content is accessible not just technically, but linguistically accessible to diverse user populations.

This includes understanding the cultural nuance of accessibility and inclusive language. Read more about this topic in our article about communicating inclusivity in the Nordic languages. Since you can鈥檛 realistically be an expert in all the languages your users speak, a provider like Sandberg can help you build a diverse, loyal audience.

Our solutions

• Transcription Services
• Video Subtitling
• Voiceovers
• Multilingual SEO
• PDF Remediation

Why the integrated approach matters

Organisations that recognise the connections between accessibility, internationalisation and user experience often find their accessibility investments provide multiple returns, including improved SEO performance, higher customer satisfaction and even greater growth in global markets.

Start today: Download your free guide

Don’t wait to start your accessibility journey. The businesses that begin now will have significant advantages: more time for thorough testing, user feedback integration, staff training and sustainable implementation that evolves with changing requirements.

Download your free copy of “Web Accessibility Standards in the UK and EU: What Businesses Need to Know” and discover:

• Step-by-step implementation strategies that work
• Cost-effective approaches to compliance
• Industry-specific considerations
• How to turn accessibility into a competitive advantage
• Resources for ongoing compliance monitoring

Ready to make your digital presence truly inclusive? Contact Sandberg today to discuss how our language solutions can help your business thrive in the new regulatory landscape.

The post Web accessibility in 2025: What UK and EU businesses must know appeared first on sa国际传媒.

Language prioritisation is unquestionably a key element in any such user experience. If a user searches for something and Google displays results in different languages, they might assume that there is something amiss in the function of the search engine itself. To identify the user鈥檚 language, Google relies on several factors such as past search results, browser settings and geolocation, to name just a few.听

For those of us who work in SEO, marketing or localisation, it鈥檚 important to consider that before actually deciding where to rank a page, Google first conducts a real-time analysis on the user鈥檚 query to determine their preferred language. In other words, if your website is only available in English, it is unlikely to appear in search results in most other countries around the world.听

Now, if you have decided to invest time and money in translating your content into other languages, this blog sets out a series of technical aspects that may improve the localisation of your website.

URL structure听

The way you structure URLs for your multilingual website can help the user to quickly identify which language they鈥檙e using. For instance, if they are browsing the Swedish version of your website, your URL might look something like this…听

• www.yourwebsite.com/se/products听
• se.yourwebsite.com/products听听

鈥� and you can simply switch to alternative URLs to let users know they are in the German version instead.听

• www.yourwebsite.com/de/products听
• de.yourwebsite.com/products听 听

The first of these examples used to indicate the language of your website is known as a subdirectory, while the second is called a subdomain. Each method has its own pros and cons, and both ways are widely used across the web.听

Don鈥檛 let Google index automated translations 

As you have probably seen, Google Chrome has a translation function that allows users to machine translate a page into almost any language. The question is, can Google index these automated translations? 

The short answer is yes. This doesn鈥檛 mean that your site is being translated all the time, though, because Google will only run this function under very specific circumstances: 

…If there aren鈥檛 enough high-quality and relevant results for a query in the user鈥檚 language, Google Search results can include results from pages in other languages, with the title and snippet translated to the language of the user… 

Ultimately, when a user clicks on that search result, it will send them to a machine-translated version of your page. But do you really want to present this raw content to potential users? 

At Sandberg, we believe that good content is vital to creating confidence in a brand, which is why we recommend blocking Google from indexing automated translations. 

How can you do so? You can instruct your web master to add a directive called the 鈥渘otranslate鈥� attribute that looks like this: <html lang=鈥漞n鈥� class=鈥漬otranslate鈥�>. Implementing this on your website will mean that Google cannot automatically translate your pages. 

hreflang tag 

The hreflang tag is an HTML attribute and another key component in technical SEO localisation. You can use this tag to tell Google how a webpage should be geographically and linguistically targeted. 

A hreflang tag is built using the following variables: 

The tag should always follow the following format: 

{language}-{extlangtag}-{script}-{region}-{variant}-{extension} 

The most popular formulation of this attribute contains just two variables: 

{language}-{region} 

When implemented correctly, it should look something like this: 

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-gb" href="https://yourwebsite.co.uk" /> 
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en-us" href="https://yourwebsite.com" /> 
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de-de" href="https://yourwebsite.de" /> 

As it is easy to make mistakes when implementing hreflang tags on your site, we recommend using this trusty  

Which homepage for your international users? 

This question is particularly pertinent for big companies operating across multiple countries and languages. In this context, most companies have already localised their website into multiple languages, so the decision here relates to what exactly you should present to a potential user. 

If a user based in the US opens Google and enters apple.com, does that necessarily mean they want to see the US English version of this webpage? It鈥檚 possible that they are local but actually require the Spanish or Chinese version, or perhaps they are a tourist looking for information in a language from further afield. 

Ultimately, you鈥檒l need to decide how to handle language selection and recognition for your homepage. There are different ways of formulating this very important page on your website: 

1. Show all users the same content 

2. Let users choose their preferred country/language 

3. Serve the content based on their location/language settings 

Showing the same content globally 

If you open a private browser and go to you will be redirected to Apple鈥檚 international homepage. But as you can see, their site is intelligent enough to detect where you鈥檙e from and suggest a more appropriate version for you. 

Letting the user choose their preferred language/country 

If you go for this option, a country/language selector will be presented on your homepage for the user to choose which content they want to see. 

Serving content based on the user鈥檚 settings 

The third option involves serving content to your users depending on their location and language settings.  If you open a browser and go to , you’ll most probably be automatically redirected to the local version of that site.

In this article, we鈥檝e dived into the depths of website localisation, demonstrating how language recognition plays an essential role in the structural framework of an international website. 

Just as your tongue can become twisted when you speak multiple languages, the same could happen to your website if you don鈥檛 consider this technical side of SEO. 

If you鈥檙e about to send your web content for translation or have already built a global website but are unsure of how it performs across languages and regions, we recommend double-checking the points we鈥檝e listed with a localisation expert. 

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