A Pre-Publish Check for a Title, Description and Subject
A pre-publish check for a title takes about five minutes and six questions: is the headline specific, is it cased consistently, does the title tag fit, does the meta description fit, does the opening get to the point, and does the email announcing it say what it is? Each question maps to one of the TitleBee tools, starting with the Headline Analyzer and ending with the Email Subject-Line Checker. This guide runs one article through all six, in order, with the real output at each step.
The example is an imaginary interiors blog called Northlight Interiors, publishing a practical article about fitting a home office into a small spare bedroom. Nothing about the topic matters to the method; swap in your own article and the steps are the same.
Step 1: Is the headline specific? (Headline Analyzer)
The working title in the editor said "home office ideas". The first draft of a proper headline was longer and more specific. A third version added a subtitle.
| Draft | Words | Characters | Score | Grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| home office ideas | 3 | 17 | 16 | poor |
| How to set up a home office in a small spare bedroom | 12 | 52 | 58 | fair |
| How to Set Up a Home Office in a Small Bedroom: Desk, Light and Storage | 15 | 71 | 43 | fair |
The score is useful here for what it says about length. "Home office ideas" is too short to tell a reader what the article does. The subtitle version is too long: at 15 words and 71 characters, both the length and character sub-scores drop. The second draft names the task, the room and the constraint (small), and that is the one to keep.
It scores "fair", not "good". The analyzer would give more points for words from its power or emotional lists, but the only listed word that honestly describes this article is "how", which it already has. Adding "ultimate" or "amazing" would raise the number and make the headline worse; why a higher score can read worse shows that in detail. Stop when the headline is accurate and specific.
Step 2: Is it cased consistently? (Title Case Converter)
Northlight uses AP-style title case for article headlines. The Title Case Converter gives:
- AP style: "How to Set up a Home Office in a Small Spare Bedroom"
- Sentence case: "How to set up a home office in a small spare bedroom"
The AP-style line needs one hand fix. The converter lowercases "up" because it is on its list of short prepositions, but in "set up" it is part of the verb, and most editors capitalise it: "How to Set Up a Home Office in a Small Spare Bedroom". This is the most common correction the converter needs, alongside restoring brand names. The full list is in which small words stay lowercase in AP title case.
Step 3: Does the title tag fit? (Headline Pixel Counter)
Northlight's site template builds the title tag from the headline plus the site name. The Headline Pixel Counter measures each version against its 600 px desktop working figure, which is an observed approximation, not a Google rule.
| Title tag | Characters | Pixel width | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| How to Set Up a Home Office in a Small Spare Bedroom | Northlight Interiors | 75 | 681 px | Past the typical desktop width |
| How to Set Up a Home Office in a Small Spare Bedroom - Northlight | 65 | 604.7 px | Past the typical desktop width |
| How to Set Up a Home Office in a Spare Bedroom - Northlight | 59 | 549.1 px | Near the typical cut-off |
| How to Set Up a Home Office in a Small Spare Bedroom | 52 | 501.3 px | Good length |
At 600 px, the full template version keeps "How to Set Up a Home Office in a Small Spare Bedroom |" and loses "Northlight Interiors". The shorter suffix version loses only "Northlight". Either way the part that describes the article survives, because it comes first. There are three reasonable choices: accept the cut brand name, use the 59-character version that drops "Small", or drop the brand from this title tag. Google may show the site name separately and may rewrite the title link anyway, so no choice guarantees what appears. Northlight kept "Small", because it is the word that tells a searcher this article is for them, and accepted a cut brand name. More on that trade-off in front-loading a title.
Step 4: Does the meta description fit? (Meta Description Checker)
Four drafts went through the Meta Description Checker, which uses a 920 px desktop working figure:
| Draft (start) | Characters | Pixel width | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| In this post we look at some home office ideas. | 47 | 290.2 px | Short |
| Everything you need to know about setting up the perfect home office, with our top tips, ideas, inspiration and expert advice… | 160 | 980.5 px | Past the typical width |
| Fit a desk, a chair and storage into a small spare bedroom: where to put the desk for daylight, what size fits, and how to keep cables and paper off the floor. | 159 | 962.6 px | Past the typical width |
| Fit a desk, chair and storage into a small spare bedroom: where the desk goes for daylight, what size fits, and how to keep cables off the floor. | 145 | 879.3 px | Good length |
The second draft is exactly 160 characters, the usual rule of thumb, and still runs past the width figure, because it has more wide letters than average text. It also says nothing specific. The third is specific but slightly too wide. Dropping the second "a", changing "where to put the desk" to "where the desk goes" and cutting "and paper" brings the fourth inside the figure with the useful details intact. Google often builds its own snippet from the page text instead, so a good description is a strong suggestion, not a guarantee. How long should a meta description be? covers that in full.
Step 5: Does the opening get to the point? (Reading Time Calculator)
The opening paragraph, pasted into the Reading Time Calculator, came out at 112 words, five sentences, about one minute to read, a Flesch Reading Ease of 79.1 and a grade level of 7.8. Those figures say the paragraph is plain and short, which is what an introduction should be. More usefully, reading it with the headline in mind shows it answers the question at once: where the desk goes, what size fits, how to keep the floor clear. If the answer had been three sections down, no score would have shown it; reading the opening as a newcomer does.
Average sentence length is the figure worth watching. At 22.4 words it is on the long side for an opening, and the calculator would show the score rising if the longest sentence were split. That is an optional polish, not a requirement.
Step 6: Does the announcement say what it is? (Email Subject-Line Checker)
| Subject line | Characters | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| New on the blog: how to set up a home office in a small spare bedroom | 69 | Likely cut off on phones and many desktops |
| A home office in a small spare bedroom | 38 | May be cut off on phones |
| A home office in a spare bedroom | 32 | Good |
"New on the blog:" spends 16 characters saying something the sender name and the email itself already make clear. Cutting it puts the topic first. None of the three contains a word from the checker's junk-mail list, and that list would not decide delivery anyway, as this guide to spam words explains. Sentence case suits a subject line here because it reads like a message rather than a headline.
What this check does not cover
- Whether the article is any good. All six tools measure the packaging. The content still has to answer the question the headline asks.
- What Google shows. Widths are approximations of desktop results. Phones wrap titles differently, and Google may rewrite titles and build its own snippets.
- Rankings, clicks and opens. None of these tools predicts them, and passing every check is no promise of any of them.
- Your house style beyond case. Spelling, tone, and naming conventions are yours to check.
The check, as a list
- Headline: specific, about 6 to 12 words, no hype it cannot back up.
- Case: house style applied; brand names and verb particles fixed by hand.
- Title tag: the descriptive words fit inside the pixel figure, with any cut falling on the brand.
- Meta description: specific, inside the width figure, no filler.
- Opening: answers the headline's question in the first paragraph.
- Email subject: topic first, inside the phone figure where possible.