Content style guides
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Content style guides

Tag(s)
Content strategy
Cook(s)
Emma GouldRebecca Blakiston

Nutrition profile

Create consistent content with a content style guide that includes word usage, voice and tone guidelines, and more.

Cooking time

Varies depending on the complexity of your content, how comprehensive you want your guide to be, and how many people will be giving feedback during the process. It can take a few days to many months to create a style guide.

Perfect for

Ensuring your organization delivers consistent content across communication channels, including websites, emails, apps, and social media. Content style guides help employees write with standard, predictable language, which creates an easier, more consistent experience for users. Content style guides can help build brand recognition and also play an important role in establishing a sustainable content strategy for your organization.

Prep work

Audit your content

A great way to learn what's needed in a style guide is to analyze what content exists now and where you have inconsistencies. If you're focused on your website especially, see content audits and inventories to learn how a site audit might help you.

Define your scope

Identify which communication channels you'd like the style guide to apply to. Some organizations have style guides for their websites, for example, which might be distinct from their social media.

With the channel(s) in mind, identify the components you'd like to include. Elements of a style guide can include:

  • Content philosophy statement
  • Content principles
  • Writing guidelines
  • A list of common terms, their proper spellings, and their usage
  • A list of words to avoid
  • Voice descriptors or guidelines
  • Good and bad examples of applying the guidelines

If you are part of a larger organization, such as a university, be sure to check if they already have a style guide (e.g. University of Arizona style guide). It is often still useful to create your own, as long as your style guides are in alignment.

Snippet from the
Snippet from the University of Arizona style guide, structured as an A-Z list of terminology

Ingredients

You'll need a documentation tool for both creating and publishing your style guide. If you're creating the style guide collaboratively, some options are:

For publishing the guidelines once they're in final form, depending on your audience you might need:

  • An intranet
  • A knowledge management system
  • A publicly-available website

If your organization follows the style set forth in a manual such as the Associated Press (AP) Stylebook, you probably also want that on hand as a reference.

Directions

Directions vary depending on what components you're including, but below are directions for some potential components.

Content goals or principles

Strong style guides often begin with a content philosophy statement and/or a set of content principles or goals.

A philosophy statement is often a sentence or two that describes your overall approach to content, for example this simple statement from Google's Material Design System: "Text should be understandable by anyone, anywhere, regardless of their culture or language."

Principles and goals tend to be sets of verbs, adjectives, or imperatives. For example:

  • A list of verbs, e.g. "Our content aims to inspire, motivate, and educate."
  • A list of adjectives, e.g. "Our content is friendly, approachable, and relatable."
  • A list of imperatives, e.g. "Write like you talk. Be direct. Avoid jargon."
The principle, "Write simply and directly" followed by a good and bad example from
The principle, "Write simply and directly" followed by a good and bad example from Google's Material Design

Writing guidelines, terms, and usage

The bulk of most style guides are guidelines around word choice, terminology, and usage. This can include sub-sections such as:

  • Acronyms
  • Capitalization
  • Formatting
  • Inclusive language
  • Punctuation
  • Structure
Image from
Image from Hootsuite

If your guide covers multiple channels, you might have sections to talk about elements specific to those channels, such as:

  • Newsletters (e.g. subject lines)
  • Social media (e.g. hashtags)

It's also common practice to have an A-Z word list of common terms, their proper spellings, and their usage. You can also include a list of words to avoid.

List of racist words to avoid, part of
List of racist words to avoid, part of Intuit's style guide

Voice and tone

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Demystifying "voice" vs. "tone" Voice refers to your unique, distinct way of expressing yourself. Your voice reflects your brand or personality, and doesn't change. Tone, on the other hand, refers to how you express yourself in a given situation and can change depending on audience, channel, or context.

A distinct voice is a key component to brand identity. To define your voice, consider:

  • Which communities does your organization interact with?
  • What are the core values of your organization?
  • How do you want your audience to perceive you?

These answers will not only help you figure out who your audience is, but what your audience values in your content. Try exercises with the leadership of your organization (and your audience!) to identify adjectives that best describe you, such as Brand Deck.

The simplest option is to list out a set of adjectives to describe your voice.

Building on this idea, you can describe what you are and what you are not. For example:

You can also describe characteristics of your voice in depth.

Example of a voice guideline by
Example of a voice guideline by Mailchimp

Tone is another important consideration, and style guides will often offer guidance around tone or examples of different tone depending on context or channel. You might want to include examples of tone for content that could be exciting vs. upsetting to the reader, such as a job offer vs. a late fee notice.

Tone examples based on type of writing and audience from the
Tone examples based on type of writing and audience from the University of Arizona Libraries guide

Examples

To bring the guidelines to life, include some good and bad examples.

Capitalization examples from
Capitalization examples from Atlassian

Comparison charts can be especially informative.

Comparison chart describing proper terminology from
Comparison chart describing proper terminology from Shopify's style guide

Plating

Once you've created your style guide, make sure it is findable and accessible to the people who write content across your organization. Style guides are most useful if they are used widely! Some ideas:

  • Hold a training with your content editors
  • Create hands-on activities or quizzes so that employees can test their knowledge
  • Link to the style guide from points of need (e.g. your website content management system)
  • Hold refresher trainings on a regular basis
  • Incorporate the style guide into onboarding documentation for new employees
  • Have a clear way for employees to make suggestions
  • Consider the style guide a living document, setting aside regular time for updates as things in the organization change
Employees at the University of Arizona working through hands-on exercises
Employees at the University of Arizona working through hands-on exercises

Pro tips

  • Even if you don't do a full content audit, make time to review your existing content for inconsistencies. This can help you determine what should be included in your style guide.
  • Make it a team effort. Your marketing, web, and communications teams may all have important things to contribute, and your style guide is more likely to be adopted if it's a shared effort.
  • Ask some of your content editors to review the guide and make suggestions.
  • If you're part of a larger organization, such as a university or government agency, find out if there is already a style guide in place and be sure to align yours with theirs.

Resources

Articles

Example content style guides