Titles on GOV.WALES

The title (along with the summary) should tell users if the content on the page is the content they are looking for.

Use language that our users will understand. The public may not know our official name for something.

Use keyword tools such as Google Trends to find the language that users are searching for.

Keep titles short. Aim for 65 characters or less as:

• search engines will not show anything after 65 characters
• longer titles are harder to understand

Titles should:

• be sentence case
• not contain dashes or slashes
• not have a full stop at the end

Use active titles when asking users to do something, for example:

• apply for
• check
• subscribe to
• find out
• register for
• log in to

Ensure titles are unique and make sense out of context. It is not helpful for users to see many pages with the same title, for example ‘application form’. Make this more specific for example 'Freight Facilities Grant application form'.

Avoid over simplification. For example, 'Contact the Planning Inspectorate' instead of 'Contact us'.

Front-load titles so the most important words are at the beginning of the sentence.

Consider using colons:

• to help users associate small groups of closely related content
• to front-load titles

If there are many pages with a repeated phrase, change the title so that the main item comes first. For example ‘welfare standards for sheep’ and ‘welfare standards for cows’ become ‘Sheep: welfare standards’, ‘Cows: welfare standards’.

Titles can be different to the official document title. You can use the official title for the attachment or mention it in the summary or page copy if you think users will search for that term.

Use the year in the title if the page is part of a series with the same title. For example:

• Glastir Organic 2017: rules booklet
• Glastir Organic 2016: rules booklet  

When adding meeting minutes, you should use the organisation name followed by details. For example 'Welsh Revenue Authority board meeting'. The date will automatically be included in the title from the meeting date field.

Title tags are part of a website’s code and describe a web page.

A page’s title tag is not displayed as a heading on the page, it appears:

• in a browsers title bar or page tab
• as a link to the page in search engine results

A page’s title tag should be based on the main page heading (<h1>) and follow this format:

• Description based on main page heading | name of site

For example:

• Find out how your Welsh rates of income tax is spent in Wales | GOV.WALES
• Growing a business | Business Wales

Title tags for pages in GOV.WALES core (www.gov.wales and www.llyw.cymru) are automatically created based on the page title.