Title Case or Sentence Case for Headlines?
Either style is correct for a headline; what matters is picking one and using it on every headline of the same kind. Title case (most words capitalised) reads as formal and is common on books, films, many American publications and a lot of blogs. Sentence case (only the first word and proper nouns capitalised) reads as plainer and is the house style of many news sites and of several large technical style guides. The Title Case Converter produces both, plus AP-style title case, upper case and lower case, so you can see a headline in each before you choose.
This guide runs real headlines through the converter, shows where each output needs a hand edit, and measures what the choice does to width in search results with the Headline Pixel Counter.
The five outputs, side by side
The converter returns five versions of whatever you paste. Here is one headline typed in lower case:
| Output | Result for "how to write a title tag that fits on a phone" |
|---|---|
| Title Case | How To Write A Title Tag That Fits On A Phone |
| Sentence case | How to write a title tag that fits on a phone |
| AP style | How to Write a Title Tag That Fits on a Phone |
| UPPER CASE | HOW TO WRITE A TITLE TAG THAT FITS ON A PHONE |
| lower case | how to write a title tag that fits on a phone |
The converter's plain "Title Case" capitalises every word, including "To", "A" and "On". That is sometimes called start case. Most people who say "title case" mean something closer to the AP-style output, where short articles, conjunctions and prepositions stay lower case in the middle of the title. If you want the conventional look, take the AP-style line. The rules behind it are covered in which small words stay lowercase in AP-style title case.
Four more headlines, and where each needs a hand edit
| Typed as | AP style | Sentence case |
|---|---|---|
| the beginner's guide to email subject lines | The Beginner's Guide to Email Subject Lines | The beginner's guide to email subject lines |
| 10 ways to cut a headline without losing the point | 10 Ways to Cut a Headline Without Losing the Point | 10 ways to cut a headline without losing the point |
| what is a meta description and do you need one? | What Is a Meta Description and Do You Need One? | What is a meta description and do you need one? |
| SEO titles for WordPress: a checklist | SEO Titles for Wordpress: a Checklist | SEO titles for wordpress: a checklist |
The first three come out clean in both styles. Note that the apostrophe in "beginner's" does not start a new word, so you do not get "Beginner'S", and that "Is" is capitalised in the AP-style line because it is a verb, not one of the short words the rule lowercases.
The last headline shows the converter's main limit. It keeps a word you type in capitals, so "SEO" survives in both styles, but it knows nothing about brand names with internal capitals, so "WordPress" becomes "Wordpress". Sentence case is hit harder, because it lowercases every word after the first except those typed in capitals, so a brand name in the middle of a sentence-case headline always needs putting back by hand. The correct lines are "SEO Titles for WordPress: A Checklist" (AP style, with the word after the colon capitalised by hand) and "SEO titles for WordPress: a checklist" (sentence case).
How sentence case treats a second sentence
Sentence case capitalises the first letter of the text and the first letter after a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark followed by a space. So "why google rewrites some title tags. and what you can check" becomes "Why google rewrites some title tags. And what you can check". The second sentence gets its capital; "google" does not, for the proper-noun reason above. AP style, by contrast, treats the whole line as one title and lowercases "and" after the full stop: "Why Google Rewrites Some Title Tags. and What You Can Check". If a headline has two sentences, read the output before you copy it.
Does the choice change how the headline fits in search?
A little, yes, because capitals are wider than lower-case letters in the Arial metrics the pixel counter uses. Here is the same 45-character headline in each style, measured at the tool's desktop title size:
| Style | Characters | Pixel width |
|---|---|---|
| lower case | 45 | 369.1 px |
| Sentence case | 45 | 372.4 px |
| AP style | 45 | 405.7 px |
| Title Case (every word) | 45 | 421.3 px |
| UPPER CASE | 45 | 515.6 px |
The character count never changes; the width does. The AP-style version is 33.3 px wider than the sentence-case one, and the upper-case version is 143.2 px wider. On a short headline that does not matter. On a title already close to the 600 px working figure the counter uses, title case can be the difference between the last word showing and being cut. The figure is an approximation of desktop results, not a Google rule, and Google may rewrite a title link whatever its case. For a fuller look at why equal character counts give unequal widths, see why two 60-character titles can fit differently.
Upper case is the outlier. It costs width, it is harder to read in a block, and in an email subject or a search result it tends to read as shouting. It has a place in short labels and design elements, rarely in a headline.
Choosing a style
There is no ranking or engagement reason to prefer one style that holds across sites, and no reliable figure says one gets more clicks. The choice is editorial. Some things worth weighing:
- What your site already does. If two years of posts use title case, switching only new posts makes the archive look inconsistent. Either keep the style or convert old headlines in one pass.
- What kind of text it is. Many sites use title case for article headlines and sentence case for subheadings, buttons and navigation. That is a consistent rule too, as long as it is written down.
- How many proper nouns you use. Sentence case makes proper nouns stand out, which helps when headlines are full of product names. It also means more hand fixes after any automatic conversion.
- Who writes the headlines. Sentence case has fewer rules to remember, so it is easier to keep consistent across several writers. Title case needs everyone to agree which short words stay lower case.
- Where the headline appears. A style guide might call for title case on the page but your email platform or social scheduler might show the same text in a context where sentence case reads more naturally. Decide once per channel.
Whichever you pick, write it into a one-line house rule, for example "Article headlines: AP-style title case. Subheadings, buttons and email subjects: sentence case. Acronyms and brand names keep their own capitals."
A quick workflow
- Type or paste the headline as you naturally wrote it.
- Copy the output for your house style from the converter.
- Restore every brand name and proper noun the converter flattened (acronyms typed in capitals are kept).
- In AP style, capitalise a short word that follows a colon if your style guide asks for it.
- If the headline is also the title tag, paste the final version into the pixel counter to check the width in that case, not in the draft's case.
What the converter does not do
- It does not recognise proper nouns, brand names or product names with internal capitals, and it keeps an acronym only when you type it in capitals.
- It does not follow one particular style manual in full. Its AP-style output applies the core rule (lowercase articles, coordinating conjunctions and prepositions of three letters or fewer, except as the first or last word) and nothing more.
- It does not handle a word after a colon differently from any other word.
- It does not change your words, spelling or punctuation, so a typo stays a typo in every style.
- It says nothing about whether the headline is good; for that, the Headline Analyzer gives a rough structural check, with its own limits.
Case is the last edit, not the first. Write the headline, settle the words, then set the case and check the width.