Website Style Guide
Index
Content
Architecture
Graphic Design
Writing for the Web
- Presenting Text on
the Web
- Inverted Pyramid Style
of Writing
- Plain and Clear Language
- Sentence and Paragraph
Length
- Hyperlink Text
- Error Message and Form
Validation Text
Microcontent
- Alt Tags
- Page Title Standards
- Meta Tags
- Headings
- Introductory Paragraphs
- Image Filenames
Miscellaneous
- Standardised Text
- Website Directory
Guidelines
- Accessibility Guidelines
- Text as Images
Glossaries
- Glossary of Style
- Glossary of Terms
Headings - Microcontent
Updated: 23rd July 2001
Search engines use the content in header 1 tags <h1> to help determine the relevancy of a page during a search. Ideally, we should mark up the page heading with an <h1> tag. We currently use graphics to represent page headings on many pages – as long as we use relevant alt tags for these header graphics this is fine. Try to think about including keywords in headings.
<h1> tags should be used to mark up content and to attribute importance to microcontent. It should not be used to alter the appearance of text for aesthetic reasons.
Headings should closely match the descriptive phrase used in the page title. Page headings should be no more than three or four words long. Be succinct.
Avoid using "cute" or teaser headings. Write headings in plain language. Headings should not be used to try to entice readers to continue reading – they should be used to provide a short, accurate description of the content of the page so that the reader can decide whether they wish to continue reading the page.