How to make web pages accessible

A web page needs a good page title to tell the user what your content is about. This is not the same as adding a title to the page as web page text.

Titles should be:

• Descriptive
• Unique - this means that none of the pages on your website should have the same title
• Clear - eg, not 'Accessibility' but 'How to create accessible content'
• Simple

Why web pages need a page title

A title is the first thing a screen reader will read to the user, so it needs to clearly describe what your page is about.

Search engines also use the title to understand your content. If it's relevant to what someone is searching for, it should appear in the search results. A user can then decide if it matches what they are looking for.

How to check a page title

Open the web page in a web browser, like Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome. There are then several ways to find out the title of the webpage:

• The page title is usually shown as the name of the browser tab. Hover your mouse over it to see the full title
• If you are using a screen reader, your screen reader should read the title out to you
• Open the browser developer tools (devtools) and look for the 'title' element in the HTML

How to edit or add a page title

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

Some CMSs use the main page heading text as the document title.

For example, when you create a new page on a SharePoint site, you are prompted to add a page heading. This text is also automatically used as the page title.

When editing a SharePoint page, you can change the page title by selecting the first button in the Command Bar. This will be called 'Page' if you haven't added a page heading yet.

This will show a 'Title' field, where you can enter your new page title.