Titles are the first thing that a user will see when they find your content or land on the page. Nearly 80% of our users come to the site through a search engine, such as Google. Our titles need to be clear, concise and engaging to encourage people to read more and help them find what they are looking for.

Titles should reflect the words users put into search engines. They should focus on topics that users are interested in rather than survey names, designations or data sources. For example, people are more likely to search for “gender pay gap” than “Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings”, and for “employment” than “labour market”. 

Avoid using words like “provisional”, “final”, “results”, “estimates” or “statistics” where possible as research shows that shorter titles get the most engagement. These can be included in the summary instead if needed.

All titles, headings and subheadings must be written in sentence case.

We can use analytics to help you choose the best title for your content. Email content.design@ons.gov.uk

Bulletin titles

All bulletin titles must include:

• the name of the release (focusing on the topic)
• the geographical coverage
• the date or period the data cover

Bulletin titles should:

• be fewer than 65 characters including spaces
• be frontloaded and have the most important information first
• not include a survey name or statistical designation

Baby names in England and Wales: 2018

More detailed guidance for bulletin titles is available.

Article titles

Article titles should:

• be a concise description of the subject
• include the geographic coverage and time period if appropriate
• be fewer than 65 characters including spaces
• be frontloaded and have the most important information first
• not include a survey name or statistical designation

If your article contains Experimental Statistics, please include this in the summary.

Disability pay gaps in the UK: 2018

Coronavirus and the effects on UK productivity measures

More detailed guidance for article titles is available.

Dataset titles

Detailed guidance on writing dataset titles is available.

PDF titles and file names

Detailed guidance on PDF titles and file names is available.