Page contents
- Title length
- Unique and meaningful titles
- Use of capital letters in titles (sentence case)
- Symbols and punctuation in titles
Title length
Keep your titles to under 80 characters, including spaces. Tips to help:
- Use minimal words to describe the page or file content
- Use part of a long title as the first heading (H2) on the page
Example
- Too long - "Road Safety Forum agenda and minutes of the meeting held at the Runnymede Centre on 12 October 2017"
- Better - "Road safety forum meeting 12 October 2017".
Reason for this web standard
Google only displays the first part of a title. Over 80% of our customers come through Google, so a short title helps them find a webpage or file easily.
Also, long titles impact our accessibility rating.
Unique and meaningful titles
Meaningful titles tell the main subject of the webpage or file and function as a teaser for users.
Tips to help:
- Use the words your customers put into search engines in your title.
- Do not use jargon, or acronyms.
- Read your title out to someone who does not work for the council. If they know what the page or file is about from the title alone, you got it.
Examples
- 'Inspections' - this is too vague. Be more specific: for example: 'Vehicle safety inspections'.
- 'Contact SCC' - could be Surrey Cricket Club? Specialist Computer Centres? Spell it out: in full 'Contact Surrey County Council'.
- 2020-23 - write as 2020 to 2023
Reason for this web standard
Improves usability and search ranking results. Also helps people find the information they want quickly and easily.
Use of capital letters in titles
Use capitals letters only for the first word of a page title unless proper nouns or publications are included in the title.
Example
- Wrong: Winter Maintenance Schedules
- Correct: Winter maintenance schedules
Reason for this web standard
The British Dyslexia Association tells us it is easier for users to read.
Symbols and punctuation in titles
Only include:
- Apostrophe '
- Hyphen -
- Full stop .
- Question mark ?
- Exclamation mark !
- Speech marks " "
- Brackets (for acronyms and initialisms only)
- Comma ,
- Colon :
- Currency £, $ and €
Reason for this web standard
Punctuation and symbols in page titles can cause problems with a web address (URL)
