Descriptive Page Titles
Descriptive HTML page titles help users quickly understand a web page’s content. Providing unique, concise page titles helps users with disabilities quickly understand a web page’s purpose. Well-written page titles are critical to users with visual disabilities because they are always the first page element announced by screen-reading software.
Example Page Titles
| Titles | Rating | Description |
| Contact Us | Good | This title doesn't identify the site or tell who "Us" is. |
| Acme Incorporated - Contact Us | Better | A likely unique title, but it does not begin with the most specific information. |
| Contact Us - Acme Incorporated | Best | This title is concise, descriptive, likely unique, and identifies the site. It also lists the most specific information first. |
Resources
Benefits
These measures allow users with visual disabilities to quickly determine if they are interested in a page’s content. They also provide a descriptive name for bookmarking the page, which doubles as an accurate description for search results.
Best Practices
- Provide a concise page title that accurately describes the page’s content and purpose.
- Make sure the page title is unique to your site and any related sites.
- Note the current subsection of the website where appropriate, as well as the site name.
- Place the page description text first, followed by the site name(s).
- Use JavaScript to change the title to appropriately reflect page content for pages where the main content changes dynamically.