| id | author | publisher |
|---|---|---|
topic_title |
Larry Kollar |
Oje Media |
Titles are just as important as metadata and content, because a good title:
- uniquely identifies the topic
- lets the reader know exactly what the content is about
- can aid search engines to find the topic
- becomes the topic ID if none is supplied
It can be an art, making the title descriptive enough without going overboard. Task titles may be the easiest—or so it seems. For example, is "Installing the Feechurr" descriptive enough? What if Feechurr has a server component and a client component? When writing topics, best practice is to separate the server and client installation tasks, so you would have two topics:
- Installing the Feechurr Client
- Installing the Feechurr Server
You might need to get even more detailed, if Feechurr runs on different operating systems.
Is a title content or metadata? The correct answer is "yes." Many search engines put a higher weight on keywords found in titles, making them useful as metadata. But human readers use the title as well, both to narrow down search results and to understand what the topic is about. Thus, a topic title has aspects of both content and metadata, while standing apart.