A content style guide is a document that defines the voice, tone, language, and format of your content. It helps you create consistent, clear, and engaging content that aligns with your brand and goals. But how can you create a content style guide that is easy to use? Here are some tips to help you design and maintain a useful content style guide.
Before you write any content, you need to know who you are writing for. Your audience determines the tone, language, and level of detail of your content. To define your audience, you can use personas, user research, analytics, and feedback. You should also consider the context, goals, and needs of your audience when they interact with your content.
The shorter the better. I dropped my content style guides from 15 pages to 5 pages and guess which one actually got read more? You're right.
Your voice and tone reflect your brand personality and values. Your voice is how you communicate with your audience, and your tone is how you adapt your voice to different situations and emotions. To establish your voice and tone, you can use adjectives, examples, and dos and don'ts. You should also explain how to adjust your tone for different scenarios, such as positive, negative, or neutral.
Here, beware of overusing GPT Chat. It's an excellent tool to use as a kick-start to create content, but it needs your vision, tone and style and personality. Therein lies the real flavor of a publication of your authorship.
Consistency in your writing style across all content helps your audience connect to you. This may mean specifying your preferred spellings, capitalizations, and choices in formatting. For clarity, your language should be clear and concise. A conversational tone may often be appropriate, but avoid jargon at all times.
Your language rules are the guidelines for grammar, spelling, punctuation, vocabulary, and formatting of your content. They help you ensure accuracy, clarity, and readability of your content. To set your language rules, you can use existing style guides, such as AP Stylebook or Chicago Manual of Style, or create your own based on your preferences and audience. You should also include a glossary of terms, acronyms, and abbreviations that are specific to your content.
If you want content that converts, then you first need a style guide. It's about more than just avoiding typos. It overlaps with point #2 (voice and tone) to ensure everything you publish sounds like it's coming from the same entity. Inconsistently styled content can undermine brand credibility and cause you to lose sales, whereas cohesive messaging helps build trust so that prospects take the next step and move down the funnel.
Content examples are the best way to illustrate how to apply your style guide to different types of content, such as web pages, blog posts, emails, or social media posts. They help you show rather than tell how to write effective and engaging content. To provide content examples, you can use real or hypothetical content that follows your style guide. You should also highlight the elements that demonstrate your voice, tone, language, and format.
Examples are a fantastic way to demonstrate style guidelines. For example, many guides may recommend writing in a conversational style. But what does that mean? Sharing specific examples of words and phrases the brand would use (or not use) can help paint a crystal clear picture for writers. I personally enjoy “do” and “don’t” examples. Showcase the right and wrong way to articulate or phrase something so there’s no confusion or ambiguity.
Your style guide should be easy to access, navigate, and update. You want your content creators to use it as a reference and a tool, not as a burden or a barrier. To organize your style guide, you can use a clear structure, headings, subheadings, and tables of contents. You should also use a consistent format, such as a PDF, a web page, or a wiki. You should also review and revise your style guide regularly to keep it relevant and current.
Great organization shows a logical flow of the writing process or content creation. Maximizing this element makes your content style guide easy to use and easy to follow. Complex concepts can be simplified by using visuals. Also, incorporating a search function that helps users quickly locate specific rules and examples is a great way to keep your digital guide interactive.
Your style guide is not only a document, but also a culture. You want your content creators to understand, embrace, and follow your style guide. To share your style guide, you can use various methods, such as training sessions, workshops, feedback sessions, or newsletters. You should also encourage questions, suggestions, and feedback from your content creators to improve your style guide and your content quality.
When you share with your team, let them know that you're open to feedback: Are there any terms you missed? Are any of your definitions unclear? Do they have any great examples you can add for certain sections? Getting your team's involvement will help with adoption and usage.