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You made a beautiful graphic in Canva with your services, your hours, and a little "book now!" in your brand font. It looks perfect, so you upload it to your website and call that section done. I get it. It's fast, it matches your Instagram, and you know exactly how it'll look.
The catch is that text in images on your website is invisible to a lot of the people (and programs) you want reading it. Screen readers can't read it, Google can't count it as page content, and visitors on phones often can't zoom in far enough to make it out. The fix is to type your words directly into your website builder and let the design live around them. Your site stays just as pretty, and it starts doing its job for everyone who lands on it.
What Counts as "Text in Images"?
Text in images (accessibility folks call it "images of text") is any wording that's baked into a picture file instead of typed onto the page. If you made it in Canva, Photoshop, or another design program and exported it as a JPG or PNG, the words are now just colored pixels.
Some common examples we see on small business sites:
A services list or price menu uploaded as one graphic
An event flyer used as the only place the date, time, and location appear
Section headers designed in Canva so they'd use a specific font
Screenshots of client reviews or Google testimonials
"Call us" or "Book now" buttons that are pictures instead of real buttons
Infographics with no written version anywhere on the page
The quickest way to check your own site is to try highlighting the words with your cursor. If you can select them, they're real text. If the whole thing highlights as one blue box (or nothing happens), that's an image.
Why Screen Readers Can't Read Your Canva Graphic
A screen reader is software that reads a website out loud for people who are blind or have low vision. It reads the actual text on your page, top to bottom, and announces headings, links, and buttons so the listener can move around.
When it hits an image, the only thing it can read is the alt text (the short written description you add behind the image). If there's no alt text, the visitor hears something like "image" or the file name, which might be "IMG_4482.png." Your whole services menu disappears.
Alt text isn't a full fix, either. It's meant to be short, usually under 125 characters, and it can't hold headings, links, or a list of 12 services with prices. You'd be cramming an entire page into a sticky note.
This affects more people than you might expect. Plenty of your visitors are using:
Screen readers or text-to-speech tools
Browser zoom or larger default text settings
High-contrast or dark modes that change colors on the page
Translation tools that can only translate real text
None of those work on words inside a picture.
What Does the ADA Say About Text on Websites?
The Americans with Disabilities Act applies to businesses that serve the public, and courts have repeatedly treated websites as part of that. The ADA itself doesn't spell out technical website rules for private businesses, so the benchmark everyone points to is the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, known as WCAG.
WCAG has a specific guideline for this called Success Criterion 1.4.5, Images of Text. It says that if you can show something as real text, you should, with exceptions for things like your logo where the exact visual appearance matters.
I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. What I can tell you from building sites is that putting your words on the page is one of the easiest accessibility wins out there. It costs nothing extra, and it's the kind of thing that shows people you thought about them.
How Text in Images Affects Your SEO
Your best employee can't help customers who never find them. SEO is how people find your website, and Google figures out what your page is about mostly by reading the text on it.
If your services, location, and specialties only exist inside graphics, Google sees a page with a few images and very little to go on. A massage therapist in Eau Claire with "prenatal massage" and "cupping" written only in a Canva graphic is basically telling Google nothing about those services. Google has gotten better at reading images, but it doesn't treat that the same as real page content, and you shouldn't count on it.
There's a newer reason this matters, too. AI search tools and Google's AI Overviews pull answers straight from the text on websites. If your hours, prices, and services are typed on the page, those tools can find and quote them. If they're locked in a picture, someone else's website gets quoted instead.
A few more ways real text helps your site work harder:
Phone numbers and emails become tappable on mobile, so people can call you in one tap
Pages load faster, since text weighs almost nothing compared to a big graphic
Mobile looks better, because real text resizes and wraps to fit any screen instead of shrinking into a tiny, unreadable image
Updates take seconds, so changing a price means editing one line instead of reopening Canva and re-uploading
How to Put Your Text on the Page in Squarespace
Good news! You don't have to give up your design to fix this. The idea is to keep the pretty parts as images and move the words into Squarespace.
Set your brand fonts in Site Styles. Most people design headers in Canva because they want their brand font. Squarespace lets you set heading and paragraph fonts for your whole site, and you can upload a custom font file if yours isn't in the library.
Use background images on sections. Add your photo or textured graphic as a section background, then place a text block on top. It looks like a designed graphic, but every word is real.
Layer text over images in Fluid Engine. In Squarespace 7.1, you can drag a text block right on top of an image block and adjust it on the grid. This is our go-to for recreating that "Canva look" on a live page.
Export Canva graphics without the words. Design your texture, frame, or illustration in Canva, then download a version with the text deleted. Upload that as the image and type the text in Squarespace.
Use real buttons. Squarespace's button block can be styled to match your brand, and it's readable by screen readers and Google.
Type out reviews. Instead of screenshots, paste testimonials into a text block or a quote block, and add the reviewer's name.
If you love a menu or flyer graphic, you can absolutely keep it on the page. Just make sure all of the same information is also written out nearby, and give the image a short, descriptive alt text.
When Is Text in an Image Okay?
There are a few times when text inside an image makes sense:
Your logo, since the exact look is the whole point (give it alt text like "Chasing Honey Consulting logo")
Product photos where the text is just part of the product, like a label on a candle jar
Decorative graphics where the words aren't information anyone needs
Social media graphics, where the image is the content (pair it with a caption that repeats the key info)
A good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if someone would miss important information if the image didn't load. If yes, that information belongs on the page as text.
A Quick Way to Audit Your Website Today
You can check your own site in about 10 minutes. Pull up your homepage and services page and try these:
The highlight test. Click and drag across your headings and lists. Anything that won't highlight like normal words is an image.
The zoom test. On your phone, pinch to zoom in on your text. Real text stays crisp, and image text gets blurry fast.
The listen test. Turn on VoiceOver (iPhone) or TalkBack (Android) and let it read your page. It's eye-opening to hear what a screen reader skips.
If you're building a new page from scratch, our guide to building a Squarespace landing page that brings in business walks through how to lay out sections so the text and design work together.
Want us to take a look at your site and point out what's hiding in your images? Send us a message, we'd love to help you get every word working for you.
