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Page Titles and Language Declaration Print

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Two small things that matter.

PAGE TITLES

The title in the browser tab is the first thing a screen reader announces on arriving at a page.

It should describe the page, then the site.

"Contact us — Your Business" rather than "Your Business" on every page.

Identical titles across a site leave users unable to tell where they are, particularly with several tabs open.

LANGUAGE DECLARATION

The page should declare its language in the HTML element.

Screen readers use it to choose pronunciation. Without it, English text may be read with the wrong pronunciation rules.

A one-line attribute, set once in the template.

PASSAGES IN ANOTHER LANGUAGE

Mark them with their own language attribute, so they are pronounced correctly.

Relevant for multilingual sites and for quoted phrases.

WHY THESE MATTER

Both are trivial to implement and both meaningfully affect the experience.

They are also frequently wrong: sites declaring a language they are not written in, or with no declaration at all.

CHECKING

View the page source and look at the opening HTML element.


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