Title (H1 heading)
The page title is the first field you fill out when creating a page. It is also the first thing users see when they land on the page.
- Make it clear, concise and specific to help users feel confident they’re on the right page.
- Use sentence case and put your important keywords at the start of the title.
- The optimum character length is between 50 and 70 characters long for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).
Importance of page title for SEO and navigation
The page title is an important page elements for SEO.
- Ensuring page titles are unique also helps search engines and audiences tell the difference between related pages and choose the most relevant result.
- The page title is the text that appears in the browser tab and is also used as the main link text in search engine results pages (SERPs).
- It's the first thing the audience see when they come across your web page in search results.
- It's important to make sure that the page title accurately describes the content of the page and includes relevant keywords to help search engines understand what the page is about.
Navigation elements such as menus, breadcrumbs and the URL also rely on the page title. You can choose to edit for the navigation context, using the short title and URL slug fields.
Image: The last part of the URL (slug) and the breadcrumb are based on the page title.
When to use the short title field
- The short title is an optional field.
- Use it to create brief, contextual page titles to display in navigation menus, cards, indexes and breadcrumbs.
- While page titles should be descriptive and unique, short titles should be lean and contextual.
- The short title will also show in any side navigation which is helpful for long page titles as it keeps side navigation short and readable.
- It must be sentence case.
Image: Updating the short title field (but not the slug field).
Image: Using the short title field changes the URL slug and breadcrumb, but not the page title (H1 heading).
How to use the slug
- Slug is an optional field. It refers to the last part of the URL that appears after the final slash.
- You can choose to create a shortened slug that is different to the short title, or without using a short title at all.
- Include dashes between words.
- You must use all lowercase letters
- The slug field does not modify the page title, side navigation or breadcrumb for a page, just the URL.
- If you don't fill out the slug field:
- The slug will automatically generate from your page title, or
- If you use a short title, the slug will automatically update to match the short title.
Image: Filling out the slug field correctly.
Image: The page title has stayed the same but the URL has the slug. The breadcrumb and side navigation would remain as the title.
Meta title and description for SEO
Sometimes the best page title and summary for search may not make the best experience for users on the page itself.
For example, the best SEO title may be long and include specifics like 'in NSW' or your agency name - details which can be clumsy and redundant on the page itself.
This is when metatags come in handy.
- The meta page title and description are optional fields. You can find them under 'Basic tags'.
- If you don't fill them out, the information is automatically pulled from the mandatory title and summary fields, and used by search engines - including our internal site search.
- If you fill out one or both of these metatag fields:
- The information from the meta fields will be used by search and in the page tab.
- The title and summary information that appear on your page will not change.
Image: You can find the SEO page title and description fields under Metatags>Basic tags in the righthand menu in the edit view of a page.
Related information
Learn more about:
- the importance of page summaries for SEO
- our editorial style for page titles, short titles and URL slugs
- rules and tips for writing page summaries on nsw.gov.au
Need any more help?
If you have any questions, or require assistance with anything mentioned on this article, submit a request via the webform.