Establish Your Style
When creating content for your site, you'll need to think about visual elements like your font, layout and color schemes.
But a visually appealing site will never hold visitors unless it's as easy to read as it is to look at.
That's why establishing a consistent style is every bit as important as attracting prospects with pretty pictures.
What Is Style?
When it comes to writing, style serves two basic functions:
- It determines the tone or "voice" of your writing.
- It ensures consistent grammar and usage throughout your content.
For web writing, finding the right voice is especially important.
But you'll also need to create consistent content that reads the same on every page, or your readers will question your professionalism.
Why Does Voice Matter?
To answer that question, let's start with a simpler one: How do people spend most of their time online?
If you're hip to the social media revolution, you'll know that people use the web for communicating more than anything else.
And most of that conversation is between friends and family.
That means web readers are accustomed to friendly, conversational writing. In fact, they expect it. Consider, for example, the amount of time people spend on sites like Facebook and using applications like email and instant messaging.
As you establish a voice for your site's content, keep this expectation in mind.
One of the biggest mistakes small businesses—or any businesses, really—make online is trying to sound bigger and more formal than they are. It's as though sounding like a faceless corporation makes them somehow more credible.
But when you write for the web, your readers want an immediate sense of your personality. If your words wear an impersonal mask, your readers will search elsewhere for a voice that speaks directly to them.
Choose the Right Voice
By now, you should have an idea of who you're writing for. And that knowledge of your typical customer's age, sex, location and education should inform the voice you use.
But unless you're writing for robots, don't stray from being as personable as possible. A university-educated audience is not an excuse to show off your vocabulary.
In fact, studies show that even highly educated readers find content far more useful and readable if it's written for a pre-secondary school audience.
Let your subject matter be your guide. If your site offers home renovation projects for weekend do-it-yourselfers, write from the perspective of a wise, grandfatherly handyman. Be matter-of-fact with your tone—but kind and helpful at the same time.
And if your site compares cosmetic products, watch a few episodes of Sex and the City to get a feel for how the show's characters might describe a new lip plumper to their friends.
Be creative—but never lose that friendly, personal voice that web readers are accustomed to.
Mind Your Usage
At this point you're likely wondering: If web readers expect a personal, informal voice, why should I focus on stylistic elements like proper grammar and usage?
In other words, does quality of language count online?
It's a worthwhile question. After all, most fifth graders could find reasons to ridicule an above-average blog post. And with all that crummy content out there, you might think the web is where grammar goes to die.
But think of it this way. It's precisely because of all the poor writing that you should develop and stick to a clean, consistent style.
Believe it or not, your readers have an eye for quality. They can tell whether you've put some effort into your content (or whether you've bothered to hire a good copy editor). And if you don't seem to care about the content that describes your product, they'll be left wondering how much work went into your actual offering.
And don't worry: Creating a useful style guide won't leave you sounding stiff and stilted—especially if you follow the rules of effective web writing.
Instead, your style will simply ensure that the friendly, likable voice you've created is used throughout your site. So your readers will know they're getting consistent information from a consistent source.
When you focus on your content's quality, your site will stand out against an error-laden backdrop of low-quality writing.
Other sites may not bother with grammar, but that gives you a greater chance of making your content shine.
Create Your Style Guide
A style guide is a manual that sets standards for writing. It typically includes both larger issues like design (how text appears) and smaller considerations like punctuation and specific usage.
Your best bet for creating a style guide is to rely on what's already out there. There are a number of established manuals, and each caters to a different purpose.
Book authors, for instance, will likely side with the Chicago Manual of Style, while a journalist would go with the Associated Press Stylebook (AP style).
Then again, journalists who write exclusively for the web might use Wired magazine's manual.
Nearly every publication has its own house style. And most begin with an established guide and add their own preferences based on their subject matter. At Commune, for instance, we rely on a mix of AP and Wired style, with a dash of our own web-tested guidelines to enhance readability.
Since you'll be writing for the web, either AP or Wired style will do the trick. Or, if you don't want to shell out for a hard copy or online membership, try one of the many free online style guides. Even Wikipedia offers free access to its manual.
Address Specific Issues
An existing style guide will give you the basics. But as you write, you'll run into a number of issues that a general guide simply can't deal with.
You'll likely have to resolve these problems using common sense (or Google), but be sure to keep track of your solutions so you can use them consistently.
So once you've found an established guide you like, your next step is to create a supplementary list of terms, phrases and issues specific to your content.
This list will become your house style guide.
Let's say you're a nutritionist who creates personal meal plans for people online. You'd need to create a list of spellings and formatting issues that pertain to your offering.
You might start by answering the following questions:
- How should you format recipes and ingredients?
- In what order should you list cooking instructions?
- What measurement standards will you use?
- What abbreviations will you have to explain to your readers?
- Will you call yourself a "dietitian" or "dietician" (both spellings are considered correct)?
As you write, you'll discover new usage issues, which you'll have to resolve and add to your ever-evolving house style.
The key is to keep track of everything, so you'll always have consistent content that eliminates friction between you and your readers.
Your Style Checklist
When complete, your specific style guide may include entries on the following:
- grammar
- readership considerations
- voice
- spelling (ambiguous or content-specific terms)
- punctuation
- italics
- formatting style for citations and bibliographies
- preferred sentence and paragraph lengths
- font usage
- symbol usage
- abbreviation usage
- accepted terminology
- structure
- paragraph numbering and indentation
- heading usage (title case or sentence case)
- date formats
- list usage
- trademark and branding considerations
And once you have a workable guide, be sure to distribute it to anyone who writes content for (or edits) your site. The last thing you want is to have someone else confuse your readers by using a foreign format or term.
Your Style Guide: Step by Step
You're now ready to start creating your site's style guide.
But you don't have to do it all at once. Style manuals are constantly updated according to new problems and discoveries, so you can build yours up as you go.
To get started, follow these steps:
- Define your voice. Customize it according to your customers and content, but always keep it simple, friendly and personal.
- Find an established guide you like. Remember, for web writing, you'll want a guide that focuses on readability over sophisticated prose. Try the AP or Wired manuals.
- Add specific issues. As you write and update your content, keep a record of terms and phrases that are specific to your offering. And make sure all future instances agree with your list.
- Distribute your guide. If anyone else writes for or edits your site, make sure they have a copy on hand.
And remember, traditional guides won't cover web-specific topics like organizing information, eliminating scrolling and breaking content into digestible chunks. So be sure to include these considerations in your house style guide.
Because all the friendliness and proper grammar in the world won't help your site if readers can't find what they're looking for.
What's Next?
Now that you've established your style, it's time to arrange your schedule.
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