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No quick way to skip to the main content

What this means for your business

Your page doesn't offer a way to skip repeated navigation and jump straight to the main content. Every time a keyboard or screen reader user visits a new page, they have to tab through every menu item before reaching the actual content — which is exhausting on sites with long navigation.

How to fix it
Easy
20–40 minutes

  1. 1Your page doesn't include a way to skip the navigation and jump directly to the main content. Keyboard and screen reader users have to tab through every navigation link on every page load before reaching the content.
  2. 2Add a "Skip to content" link as the very first element in your page's <body>. Make it visually hidden by default but visible when focused.
  3. 3The link should look like: <a href="#main-content" class="skip-link">Skip to main content</a>
  4. 4Add an id="main-content" to the <main> element that wraps your page's primary content.
  5. 5Style the skip link to be off-screen normally (.skip-link { position: absolute; left: -9999px; }) and visible when focused (.skip-link:focus { left: 0; }).
  6. 6Test by pressing Tab once after the page loads — the skip link should appear. Press Enter — you should jump past the navigation to the main content.

On WordPress

Most modern accessibility-focused WordPress themes include a skip link automatically. If yours doesn't, add the skip link HTML at the top of your theme's header.php file and the CSS to your theme's stylesheet. Many accessibility plugins (like WP Accessibility) add this automatically.

On Shopify

Add the skip link at the top of your theme's theme.liquid file, inside the <body> tag. Add the CSS to your theme's main stylesheet.

Pro tip: The skip link is invisible to sighted users (unless they navigate with the keyboard), so there's no visual trade-off for adding it. It's one of the highest-impact accessibility changes with essentially zero visible footprint.

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