Naming Conventions
Page Titles
Page titles serve three audiences at once: visitors scanning the site, search engines indexing the content, and AI tools citing AWI's work. Write for all three.
Do
- Front-load the most important keyword
- Use title case consistently
- Keep under 60 characters for SEO
- Be specific: Fur Farm Bans by State
- Use the bill name on policy pages
Avoid
- Burying the topic at the end
- Generic titles: Overview, Learn More
- All caps or all lowercase
- Punctuation at the end
- Vague program-internal names
Heading hierarchy
- Every page should have exactly one H1—the page title.
- Use H2 for major sections, H3 for subsections. Don't skip levels.
- Headings should be descriptive enough to make sense out of context—screen readers and AI tools read them in isolation.
Button Labels
Use action verbs (imperative form)
Start with a strong, specific verb that tells the user what will happen.
Be concise and task-specific
1–3 words. The label should make sense even without reading the surrounding text. Avoid generic terms that could appear anywhere on the site.
Use Title Case—not ALL CAPS
All caps reduces readability and can feel aggressive. Title case is consistent with the site's tone.
Be consistent across the site
The same action should always use the same label. If a button opens a report download on one page, it should say the same thing on every page.
Link Text
Link text is read by screen readers and indexed by search engines—never use "click here" or bare URLs as visible link text.
- Prefer a specific action word: View LAREF Series over LAREF Series or here.
- The arrow icon already signals "this is a link"—you don't need to say "Go to" or "Click here."
- For ADA compliance, link text must describe the destination when read alone. Developer handles this on the backend for programmatic buttons. For buttons you create, follow this guideline.