Creating a Website That Shows Inclusivity and Diversity

A website shows inclusivity and diversity through four things: the values you publish, the people you picture, the resources you point to, and whether the site actually works for someone using a screen reader. Everything else is decoration.

I see a lot of business owners saying things on social media that never make it onto their website. The beliefs live in Instagram captions, and the site stays generic. If someone landed on your homepage cold, having never seen a single post, would they know what you stand for?

This is something you live out in your business, and your website is where it gets documented. Also want to mention two DEI educators worth following: Trudi Lebron and According to Weeze.

Why does an inclusive website matter for your business?

Your website is the one piece of marketing a stranger reads without you there to explain yourself. It decides whether someone who has been dismissed, mispronounced, or made to feel like a problem elsewhere thinks you might be different.

So many people arrive at a practitioner’s site carrying a bad experience with a previous provider. They are looking for signals, and they will find them one way or another.

What should your values and inclusivity statement actually say?

Based on what I’ve been taught by DEI educators, put your core values on your about page, and write them specific enough that someone could hold you to them. “We welcome everyone” tells a reader nothing. “Sliding scale spots open every quarter” tells them what you do.

This should cover anything relating to anti-racism, inclusion, and access. If you have written a DEI statement for your business, it belongs in that same section of your about page rather than buried on a separate page

I have also seen business owners put their values in job descriptions, so candidates know what the company stands for before they apply.

The fear I hear most is that a values statement will read as performative, but I think specificity and follow-through is how you fix this. Name the commitments you already act on: the sliding scale, the accessible scheduling, the continuing education your team does, the intake form you rewrote.

Should you talk about the give-back component of your business?

Yes, if you have one. Name the organization, say what you give and how often, and explain why you chose them.

A lot of business owners donate a percentage or a monthly or quarterly amount. Sometimes the organization changes each quarter, sometimes it is the same one every year. Put it on your website so people know who you support, and invite them into it. They can give directly, or they can know that a percentage of what they spend with you goes there.

If a particular workshop sends all its proceeds somewhere, say that on the signup page, not just in a caption the week of launch. This isn’t to boast that you’re giving back. It’s so people know what you’re about.

How do you build a resources page that reflects diversity?

Audit who you’re already recommending. Your resources page, the books, the podcasts, the affiliate links, the tools, is one of the fastest places to show a diverse lineup, because you’re recommending people either way.

Books are the easy one. Look for authors of color you can recommend. Same with podcasts, there are podcasters of color covering every topic your clients care about. If your list of ten recommendations came from the same five industry names everyone else links to, that is the first thing to fix.

How do you show the diversity of your clients on your website?

Show real clients, with permission, across photos, video, testimonials, case studies, podcast guests, and guest posts.

Not everyone photographs their clients, and in a health or wellness practice you may not be able to. Then it shows up in whose words you quote, who you interview, who writes for you, and which stories you tell.

When you are choosing stock images, think past race alone. Body size, age, visible disability, mobility aids, family structure, hair texture. A single stock photo of five smiling people of different races reads as a stock photo, because it is one.

What does an inclusive website look like compared to an outdated one?

Inclusive website elements	Outdated web practices
Alt text describing every meaningful image	Missing alt text, or alt text like “image1.jpg”
Text and background at 4.5:1 contrast or better	Light gray body text on white because it looks minimal
Form fields with visible, coded labels	Placeholder text used in place of a real label
Heading levels in order, H1 down through H4	Headings picked by font size, levels skipped
Descriptive link text (“read the intake guide”)	“Click here” and “learn more”
Every menu, form, and modal usable by keyboard	Menus that only open on mouse hover
Captions and transcripts on video and audio	Video posted with neither
Values and DEI statement published on the about page	Values that only exist in Instagram captions
Client and team photos showing a range of bodies, ages, races, and abilities	One stock photo of a diverse group
Resources page including authors and podcasters of color	Recommendations copied from the same five industry names
Intake forms with open name and gender fields, plus pronouns	Required binary gender field and a first/last name regex
Accessibility rechecked when the site changes	An accessibility widget installed once and forgotten

Is your website actually accessible to every visitor?

Accessibility is also inclusivity. A values statement someone’s screen reader can’t read is a big failure.

Four things to check, in order of how often they’re broken:

Contrast. Low contrast text showed up on 83.9% of the pages WebAIM scanned in 2026. Run your brand colors through the WebAIM contrast checker and aim for 4.5:1 on body text.

Alt text. Missing alt text appeared on 53.1% of home pages. Describe what the image shows and why it’s there. Decorative images get an empty alt attribute so screen readers skip them.

Form labels. Half of the sites scanned had unlabeled form inputs. If your contact or intake form uses gray placeholder text instead of real labels, that’s the problem, and it’s the form people fill out to become clients.

Headings in order. Skipped heading levels were on 41.8% of pages. Screen reader users move through a page by heading, so a page that jumps from H2 to H4 is a page with a missing step.

If you want the actual standard rather than my summary of it, the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines are the source everything else references, and ADA.gov’s web accessibility guidance explains how it applies to US businesses.

One warning. The one-line JavaScript “accessibility widget” that promises instant compliance does not deliver it, tends to interfere with the screen reader setups people have already configured, and has become a flag that plaintiffs’ firms search for.

How do you keep this from being performative?

Match what’s on the site to what happens in the business. A homepage full of diverse faces above an all-white team page and a practice that has never adjusted a single price reads exactly like what it is.

Revisit the site when things change: when your client base shifts, when someone gives you feedback, when you learn something that makes an old page look wrong. And when a client tells you something on your site didn’t land, believe them and change it rather than explaining what you meant.

Frequently asked questions

Is my website inclusive enough if I use diverse stock photos? No. Stock photography is the easiest signal to fake, and readers know it. Photos are one input alongside your published values, who you actually serve, who you recommend, and whether the site works with assistive technology.

What should an inclusivity statement say? Name what you do, not just what you believe. Sliding scale availability, gender-affirming intake forms, physical access at your office, ongoing staff training, and the populations you have specific experience with all give a reader something concrete. Skip anything you can’t point to evidence of.

How do I know if my website language is excluding certain clients? Read the site as an outsider, then ask someone outside your demographic to do the same. Look for gendered assumptions in intake copy, ableist idioms, clinical jargon that assumes a client already knows the vocabulary, and any place you wrote “just” in front of something that isn’t simple for everyone.

What if I’m not equipped to serve every population I want to include? Say who you are especially equipped to serve, and keep a referral list for the rest. Naming your specialty isn’t exclusion. Claiming you serve everyone when you don’t is how people end up in an appointment with a provider who has never worked with someone like them.

How often should I check my website for inclusivity and accessibility? Once a year as a baseline, plus any time you redesign, add a page template, or change your intake process.

Final thoughts

If you’re staring at this list feeling like you need to overhaul everything, don’t. Pick one thing this week. Run your brand colors through a contrast checker, or write three sentences of real values copy for your about page, or open your intake form and look at the name and gender fields.

If you’d rather have someone else audit the site and hand you the list, that’s what I do.