Confused Blogger Seeks Clarity
Friday at SOBCon, a few of us were talking about whether every word in a blog post title should be capitalized. Does anybody know?
In print media, prepositions, conjunctions, and articles are not capitalized in headlines unless they are the first word. Some bloggers follow these rules, but many capitalize every word. Does it matter? Joanna Young seemed to think there might be some SEO impact one way or the other.
I wonder if someone like Deb or Kristen could clear this up.
This is a problem when I do link posts. For my anchor text, I like to use the title of the original post. Should the titles be reprinted with the original punctuation, or, for consistency, should they be changed to one capitalization style?
Emerson was right — a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. But is the cap/post title issue foolish or fundamental?
Thanks for asking the question Brad. Hopefully someone will have the answer!
Joanna
Maybe it’s, er, fundamentally foolish?
Good question, Brad. Let’s see if the vast research department can figure this one out, too!
This is actually one of the topics I keep meaning to write about, but here’s a handy resource for you:
http://grammartips.homestead.com/caps.html
You capitalize the first and last words, all the nouns, verbs, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions of 5 letters or more.
You do NOT capitalize articles, conjunctions, or the word “to” when it’s part of an infinitive … unless they’re the first word.
Basically, what I was taught in second grade? You capitalize the “Important” words–the ones that give the title substance–and leave the unimportant ones lowercase.
Hi Deb, thanks for the tip – very concise link. It sounds like bloggers should follow standard punctuation rules. I wonder why so many don’t. ?? Puzzling to me.
Um, I think different rules do apply to internet writing. Going to keep searching for the resource that flipped me over to writing headlines this way
Unless maybe I just flipped!
Joanna
Joanna, the only special rule grammatical rule for internet writing i’m familiar with is using a dash instead of a colon or semicolon. Are there others besides the caps issue?
Brad, I don’t think it affects SEO, but I’ve never read anything to prove that. I think it’s a bit easier for many people to read headlines when you don’t capitalize every word. And I personally tend to ascribe a little more authority or literacy to someone who follows the old-school method of leaving some words uncapitalized.
But for most audiences, it probably doesn’t matter much.
Hi Easton, thanks for the input. It’s good to know even a few people still see a connection between authority and correct grammar. Even if most people don’t care, when in doubt, you can’t go wrong writing correctly.
Brad, I took my chance and asked Brian Clark on Twitter
He said…
I don’t capitalize ‘and’ & ‘the’ in headlines, except sometimes when they start the second line (yesterday’s post I didn’t)
But I do capitalize words like ‘with’ that you technically shouldn’t… just presents better imho.
So his reason is based on presentation.
Joanna
Joanna, thanks so much! Can’t imagine a better authority than Brian Clark, but it’s beginning to look like the “official” rules of blogging grammar are still a work in process.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, how more and more things change while so many of them stay the same? I have no problem with things changing, so long as people have some idea that there are rules involved. So many people don’t seem to even care–THAT irks me! (grin)
You know… we can solve this whole issue by only using lower case from now on. C’mon! Who’s with me!
Bob, you first!
I generally capitalize anything with 4 or more letters, including prepositions. And verbs are capitalized regardless of length. First and last word always capped. Use numerals instead of writing out numbers. Cap all parts of a hyphenated word. Cap the first word after a colon.
Combo of grammar rules on title case and marketing tricks to grab attention.
Sorry to be late in the game!
kk
Kristen, thanks for stopping by Word Sell. Seems like you’ve developed your own set of rules might make an interesting post. If nothing else, this conversation shows that for blog grammar, there is no definitive set of rules.
Interesting post, I think I will go on capitalizing
Great write-up. I’ve always wondered about blog posts being capitalized or not. Wouldn’t it be interesting if Google started ranking sites based on gramatical correctness?
Periodic – Haha, that would be fun to see but also disastrous for many of us.
I’m still trying to figure out the ‘correct’ answer to the title capitalization issue though, as well as proper SEO use of capitalization in tags and categories in WordPress. Any help there would be greatly appreciated as well!