In this section:
- 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/file content best
- 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 and as over 80% of our customers come through Google, a short title means your page/file will be found easily.
Long page titles impacts our accessibility rating.
Unique and meaningful page titles
Meaningful titles tell the main subject of the page/file and act as a teaser for users.
Tips to help:
- Use the words your customers put into search engines in your title.
- Don't use jargon, abbreviations and acronyms.
- Read your title out to someone who doesn't work for the council. If they know what the page/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? So 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 page 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)
