How to make web pages accessible

Page title

Add a page title that's short, unique and descriptive so people know what your web page is about.

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Make page titles short, unique and descriptive

A page title on a web page tells people what your content is about. 

The page title is:

  • the first thing that appears in search results.
  • displayed in the web browser tab 
  • the main heading on the page - usually a heading level 1 (h1)
  • the first thing a screen reader reads out

Your page title needs to be short, clear, descriptive and unique. No two pages on your website should have the same page title. 

For example: 

Good page title: Who can claim Universal Credit

Bad page title: Who can claim

A page title should:

  • be descriptive
  • use plain language
  • be short (60 characters or less)
  • put important words early (front-load)
  • use sentence case (except for proper nouns)
  • use words people would use to search for the topic

A page title should not:

  • be too long, or it will cut off in the search results
  • contain jargon or technical language
  • include abbreviations or acronyms unless well known, for example: UK, EU or NHS.

How to edit or add a page title

Most website content management systems (CMSs) will allow web editors to edit the page title. This could be in a 'Content', 'Metadata' or 'Properties' section. 

Screenshot of CMS showing page node and page title field
Screenshot of CMS Content page node showing the 'Page Title' field

Some editing tools, like SharePoint, will use the main page heading text as the page title.

Web page title and its node name

In some CMSs, a web page's title and its node name are not always the same.

The page title is what people see on the web page. The node name is mainly for web editors - it helps organise pages on a website. It can sometimes also appear in a web page's address (URL). 

The node name can be different to the page title or very similar (usually shorter). 

How to check your page title

Before you publish your web page, use the guidelines on this page to manually check your page title. 

After you publish your web page, check your page title is set up correctly. 

  1. Open the web page in a web browser, like Microsoft Edge.
  2. Make sure page title clearly describes the page content
  3. Open WAVE Evaluation Tool (Microsoft Edge Addons).
  4. Go to the 'Structure' tab
  5. Check page title is the main heading (heading level 1).

HeadingsMap (Microsoft Edge Addons) is another tool you can use to quickly check heading structure on your webpage.

Related resources

Guidance on writing page titles

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines about page titles