Look at any two websites and you'll notice something small but telling. One writes its headings like How To Write A Great Blog Post. The other writes How to write a great blog post. Neither is wrong — they're using two different capitalization styles. But mixing them on the same site looks careless, and picking the right one for the right place makes your writing easier to read.
What is title case?
In title case, you capitalize the main words of a heading and leave short "minor" words in lowercase.
The Complete Guide to Growing Tomatoes in Pots
Generally, you capitalize:
- The first and last word, always
- Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs
- Longer conjunctions and prepositions (depending on the style guide — more on that below)
And you lowercase:
- Articles: a, an, the
- Short conjunctions: and, but, or, nor
- Short prepositions: in, on, at, to, of, by, for
What is sentence case?
In sentence case, you write a heading exactly as you would a normal sentence: capitalize the first word and any proper nouns, and nothing else.
The complete guide to growing tomatoes in pots
That's the entire rule, which is a big part of its appeal.
How the big style guides handle title case
Title case isn't one single standard. The main style guides disagree on the details, mostly about prepositions:
| Style guide | Rule for prepositions and conjunctions | Example |
|---|---|---|
| AP (news, PR) | Capitalize words of four or more letters | Walking Through the Park With Friends |
| APA (academic) | Capitalize words of four or more letters | Walking Through the Park With Friends |
| Chicago (books, publishing) | Lowercase prepositions regardless of length | Walking through the Park with Friends |
If you're writing for a publication, follow its guide. If it's your own site, choose one approach and stick with it.
When to use title case
Title case feels more formal and traditional. It works well for:
- Book, film and article titles
- Blog post titles on sites with a classic editorial feel
- Press releases and news headlines (especially if you follow AP)
- Product names and campaign names
When to use sentence case
Sentence case is more relaxed and conversational, and it's become the default for a lot of modern writing:
- Headings inside an article — H2s and H3s are much easier to scan in sentence case, especially when they're long.
- Websites and apps — many major design systems use sentence case for headings, buttons and menus.
- Buttons and labels — "Download free guide" reads more naturally than "Download Free Guide".
- Long headings — the longer a heading, the more title case starts to look like shouting.
Does capitalization affect SEO?
Not directly. Google doesn't care whether your title tag says "Best Running Shoes" or "Best running shoes" — it will rank the page the same way.
Where it matters is click-through rate and consistency. A clean, readable title is more likely to earn a click, and consistent style across your site signals care. Some publishers find that title case helps a headline stand out in search results; others find sentence case feels more human. If you're unsure, pick one and test it on a few pages over time.
A simple rule you can adopt today
If you don't have a style guide, this combination works for most websites and blogs:
- Title case for the main page or post title.
- Sentence case for everything inside the page — H2s, H3s, buttons, captions.
It gives your titles a little weight while keeping the body easy to read.
Fix capitalization in one click
Converting a batch of headings by hand is tedious — and easy to get wrong. Paste them into the free Case Converter and switch between Title Case, Sentence case, UPPERCASE, lowercase and even programming styles like camelCase and kebab-case. It keeps short words like "and", "of" and "the" lowercase in title case, so most headings come out right first time.
Polishing a title for search? Once the capitalization is sorted:
- Check its length with the Meta Title & Description Generator
- Turn it into a clean URL with the SEO Friendly URL Generator
- Make sure the article itself is easy to read with the Readability Checker