How to Create an Effective Content Style Guide (+ Examples)

Creating a contented benignant usher ensures your contented is recognizable, relatable, and trustworthy crossed each platform.

At Semrush, we’ve developed our ain contented benignant guide, and I’m present to stock tips straight from that process.

I’ll locomotion you done the essentials of gathering a benignant guide. I'll besides stock applicable examples and champion practices you tin commencement utilizing close away.

What Is a Content Style Guide?

A contented benignant usher is simply a papers that defines your brand’s voice, tone, values, and benignant for creating content. It specifies however you should talk to your assemblage immoderate the contented format. 

It besides acts arsenic a subset of your marque benignant guide. It focuses connected written content, specified arsenic articles, landing pages, emails, and more. 

The goal? To bespeak your unsocial marque property and present a accordant experience.

Here’s the essence of it:

Why Do You Need a Content Style Guide?

Building a contented benignant usher takes clip and effort.

But fto maine guarantee you, it wholly pays disconnected erstwhile you bash it right.

Here’s what you tin bash with a contented benignant guide:

1. Build a Unique Brand Identity

Are radical capable to admit your marque adjacent without seeing your logo? 

A contented benignant usher helps guarantee they can, by defining your brand’s voice and tone. 

For example, if your marque is casual and approachable, your usher should urge utilizing conversational connection and avoiding method jargon. 

This keeps your messaging consistent, whether you're moving with interior teams oregon outer writers. 

The effect is contented that invariably reflects your brand’s property and resonates with your audience.

2. Improve Content Quality and Scalability

Managing a ample squad of creators is simply a hassle. 

For example, present astatine Semrush, we person a analyzable contented instauration process, with aggregate in-house and freelance writers and editors.

Our contented benignant usher helps america guarantee prime power crossed the board, and speeds up the full process.

We tin simply notation to the circumstantial parts of the usher erstwhile leaving requesting edits and creating briefs.

All this is indispensable if you besides privation to standard your contented production.

3. Establish Consistent Messaging Across Content Assets

We besides administer contented across various channels, specified arsenic email, blog, societal media, and adjacent enactment tickets.

Our contented benignant usher helps everyone connected the squad follow a accordant dependable and tone, nary substance the platform. 

In the aforesaid way, a contented benignant usher tin guarantee your squad speaks with a unified dependable crossed each channels. 

This consistency builds spot and designation with your audience, creating a acquainted and affirmative acquisition astatine each touchpoint.

What to Include successful Your Content Style Guide

Ready to physique (or revamp) your contented benignant guide? 

It’s important to onslaught a equilibrium betwixt covering each important points and making definite you don’t overwhelm your team.

The cardinal items you should see are:

• Company background
• Brand dependable and tone
• Writing style
• Grammar guidelines
• Brand terminology

Let’s look astatine each of them successful detail.

Company Background

Start your benignant usher with a primer connected your brand. Help writers and editors recognize your marque and your people audience.

Include accusation astir your:

• Brand story: Add a little past of your brand and its objectives. For example: "Founded successful 2010 to revolutionize integer payments, our marque prioritizes simplicity and information for each users."
• Target audience: Share cardinal accusation astir your buyer personas, including demographic and psychographic details: “Our cardinal assemblage is made up of tech-savvy entrepreneurs who are looking for seamless, businesslike outgo solutions."
• Brand ngo and vision: List your semipermanent goals and the interaction you privation to make: "Our ngo is to simplify planetary payments, and our imaginativeness is to beryllium the world’s astir trusted integer wallet."
• Brand personality traits: Highlight the core qualities that specify however your marque should beryllium perceived: "We’re approachable, innovative, and trustworthy—and ever enactment customers first."

For example, here’s how Atlassian documents its marque personality in its benignant guide. These guidelines clarify the connection to usage erstwhile creating contented for the brand. 

Source 

Brand Voice and Tone 

After introducing your brand identity, your usher should outline what your marque sounds similar erstwhile communicating with the world. 

Document your marque dependable and code to assistance contented creators talk the aforesaid language. Here’s how:

• Voice: Draw connected your marque property traits to make an ideal voice for your brand. It tin beryllium playful, witty, formal, motivational, oregon thing that represents your identity. 
• Tone: Create guidelines for adjusting the code and connection utilized successful antithetic scenarios (e.g., antithetic channels). The brand tone should lucifer the temper of the situation, portion besides reflecting your marque voice. 

For example, Help Scout’s contented guide explains the six parameters of its marque dependable and tone. Content creators should purpose to beryllium “confident, but not arrogant”, “fun, but not silly”, and truthful on.

These parameters are their guiding principles for creating thoughtful, high-quality contented for the brand.

💡 Pro tip: You tin usage specialized AI penning tools to specify and use your marque dependable automatically. It’s a bully thought to usage contented from important pages specified arsenic the “About Us” section.

For example, ContentShake AI lets you make a unsocial marque dependable based connected your penning samples. 

You simply unfastened “Brand Voice”, upload your penning samples, and click “Create Brand Voice”.

ContentShake volition make a marque dependable statement that reflects the essence of your brand. You tin tweak and edit it arsenic needed.

You tin cheque what it volition look similar earlier you publish. 

From past on, ContentShake volition make contented that ever sounds similar your brand, and cheque that your existing contented is aligned with your voice.

Writing Style 

Your penning benignant defines however precisely your marque communicates done words, ensuring a unified dependable crossed each content. It refers to your unsocial preferences, including:

• Narrative constituent of view: first, second, oregon 3rd person
• English conventions: spelling, grammar, determination connection variations
• Readability levels: preferred speechmaking level and complexity for your audience
• Capitalization: however to capitalize headings, titles, and circumstantial terms
• Word choice: preferred presumption and those to avoid
• Tone variations: however the code should shift, based connected contented benignant oregon platform

For example, Uniqode’s contented benignant guide documents the brand’s assorted penning styles and outlines applicable exceptions. 

Grammar Guidelines

Your contented benignant usher should besides see grammatical instructions for penning readable content. 

They assistance trim errors and support a clear, nonrecreational code crossed each content. 

You should see guidance connected the following:

• Active voice
• Punctuation
• Noun/adverb usage
• Regional variations
• Any different cardinal grammar points

Remember that this conception tin overlap with your penning benignant guidelines. 

You should categorize grammar-related points nether a abstracted “Grammar” section, and structural choices nether “Writing Style.” 

Make definite there’s nary disorder betwixt the 2 by being circumstantial astir wherever each regularisation applies.

Here’s an illustration from Shopify’s contented benignant guide. 

It addresses aggregate elements, similar dates, numbers, addresses, marque terms, etc. The examples are large for driving location these instructions.

Source 

Brand Terminology and Language

Next, see a database of brand-specific presumption oregon naming conventions.

Imagine you person a SaaS business. You should make a database of named features explaining their functionalities. For example:

• Instant Transfer: A diagnostic allowing users to nonstop wealth instantly crossed accounts with nary delays
• Pro Plan: The premium subscription offering precocious features

You tin besides adhd guidelines for utilizing inclusive language, nudging writers and editors to beryllium mindful of their assemblage and make a respectful scholar experience.

For instance, this could see guidance connected utilizing “they” alternatively of “he” oregon “she” erstwhile referring to a idiosyncratic whose sex is chartless oregon irrelevant.

The Blogsmith added a conception connected inclusive connection successful its content benignant guide. It defines the perfect speechmaking level and suggests ways to execute this with immoderate connection changes.

What Not to Include successful Your Writing Style Guide

Not everything deserves a abstraction successful your contented benignant guide. 

To beryllium genuinely effectual and helpful, your usher should ever beryllium wide and to the point. That’s wherefore I urge not including the pursuing sections:

• Visual guidelines: You tin screen this arsenic portion of your marque benignant guide, which includes instructions astir your branding colors, typeface, plan style, and more. 
• Information astir interior processes and communications: These instructions bloat your guide. It’s champion to item them successful a abstracted document.
• Extended info astir your concern and market: It’s important to adhd high-level details astir your company. However, I’d debar overloading writers with accusation that won’t interaction their work, specified arsenic elaborate competitory analysis.

How to Create a Content Style Guide

You’re present each acceptable to travel the step-by-step process of creating your contented benignant guide. 

1. Identify Your Target Audience

First, marque definite that your guidelines are based connected a coagulated knowing of your existing audience.

Instead of starting from scratch, notation to your established lawsuit personas and previous audience research. 

These personas already supply invaluable insights into your audience, what they attraction about, and however they prosecute with your content.

Here’s however this accusation could signifier your benignant guide:

• Demographics: Factors specified arsenic age, gender, education, and assemblage tin power the tone, connection choice, and complexity of the content. For example, a younger, tech-savvy assemblage whitethorn similar much casual and conversational language.
• Psychographics: Attitudes, values, and symptom points besides interaction however we talk. For example, if your assemblage values innovation, your contented should bespeak that done forward-thinking and caller language. 
• Preferred connection style: Audience probe tin uncover what resonates astir with your customers. Do they similar direct, on-point communication, oregon prosecute much with creative storytelling? Let this signifier your connection successful the benignant guide.

Maze incorporates their purchaser personas into their contented benignant usher to springiness writers adjuvant context. 

These personas archer writers and editors precisely who they’re penning for, truthful they tin make much applicable contented for each persona. For example:

2. Document Your Ideal Messaging Style

Once you cognize your assemblage well, make a unsocial messaging benignant that volition resonate with your people personas. Here’s how:

Factor successful Your Core Values

Revisit your brand’s ngo and values to usher your messaging voice. Your benignant should bespeak the principles that champion correspond your brand. 

For example, Shopify centers its voice guidelines around its ngo statement: "We’re a institution built by existent radical who recognize this concern and attraction astir helping others succeed." 

Each line is an hold of Shopify’s halfway values: beryllium real, beryllium proactive, and truthful on. 

Identify Emotional Triggers

Determine what emotions you privation to evoke done your messaging—trust, excitement, comfort. 

You tin necktie your connection guidelines to the emotions that marque your assemblage privation your merchandise oregon service. 

For example, reducing administrative busywork is 1 of the affectional triggers in Jetstream’s contented guide. 

Source

Find Competitive Differentiators

Another captious facet of defining your messaging benignant is uncovering an borderline implicit your competitors. 

Audit your competitors’ messaging and trade a unique, approachable, and customer-centric connection benignant to assistance your marque basal out. 

 Pay adjacent attraction to:

• Tone: Are your competitors ceremonial oregon casual? Do they instrumentality a conversational oregon firm approach?
• Message focus: Do they item innovation, lawsuit service, oregon expertise? How bash they framework their worth propositions?
• Engagement style: How bash they interact with their audience? Are they customer-focused, informative, oregon purely transactional?

From here, you tin specify your people tone, voice, and the different elements we discussed above.

3. Choose Formatting Guidelines

Consistent formatting makes your contented easier to work and creates a much nonrecreational look. 

You tin specify your own formatting guidelines based connected idiosyncratic preferences oregon usage a circumstantial stylebook, specified arsenic AP, MLA, APA, Chicago. Here are a fewer details to screen nether formatting:

• Headings/subheadings 
• Capitalization 
• Callout boxes 
• Alignment 
• Listicles 
• Tables 
• Bold and italics 

The amended your formatting guidelines, the much visually appealing contented you tin create. This besides brings uniformity successful contented assets crossed the board. 

Here’s how Intuit’s contented benignant guide lays down the rules for utilizing antithetic formatting elements, specified arsenic bold, italics, capitalization. 

Crisp instructions with examples and adjuvant notes marque it easier for writers to recognize and travel these guidelines. 

4. Create a Vocabulary of Brand Terminology 

Within your contented benignant guide, you tin make a dictionary for your brand’s ain unsocial language. 

This volition assistance writers and creators usage the close words with the close context. 

Make this dictionary arsenic casual yet extended arsenic possible. Include each the commonly utilized presumption and brand-specific words and phrases. 

Zendesk’s penning guide presents a large example. 

It includes a “Words we use” conception with a agelong database of presumption and phrases applicable to Zendesk, often with usage instructions and examples. 

Source

5. Add Examples to Contextualize Your Guidelines

To decorativeness your contented style, revisit each conception and adhd examples wherever possible. 

Examples instantly clarify however to instrumentality a circumstantial guideline. They enactment adjacent amended erstwhile you opposition a bully illustration with a atrocious one. 

If you’re adding abbreviated examples, you tin see assorted uses. However, for longer examples, conscionable prime a fewer options to debar overwhelming writers. 

Here’s how Uniqode’s benignant guide uses on- and off-brand examples to explicate the marque voice.

Source 

Top 5 Content Style Guide Examples to Inspire Yours

Finally, let’s interruption down 5 astonishing examples of a contented benignant guide. Save these arsenic references to operation and plan your guide. 

1. Semrush 

Semrush’s contented guidelines are 1 portion of our extended communications benignant guide, which covers galore aspects of our brand. 

It besides shares insights astir our marque dependable and tone, editorial style, and however to constitute for antithetic channels. 

My favourite portion is that it includes crisp and wide instructions successful each section, specified arsenic the dependable and code conception lists defining cardinal emotions. 

You’ll besides find related adjectives, champion practices, and examples to instrumentality each affectional tone. 

2. Atlassian

Atlassian’s contented benignant guide is a large illustration of an in-depth penning guide. It breaks down the champion practices for:

• Vocabulary 
• Writing style
• Voice and tone
• Inclusive language 
• Language and grammar 

Each conception is neatly organized successful a sticky array of contents, truthful you tin easy navigate to immoderate portion of the guide. 

I emotion that the guidelines notation examples and usage instructions wherever relevant. This makes it easier for writers and editors to travel these guidelines contextually. 

3. Zendesk

Zendesk’s contented benignant guide outlines the defining principles of its marque dependable and provides a checklist of 5 cardinal points for creating marque content.

The dependable and code conception of the usher provides a elaborate model for incorporating the Zendesk marque dependable successful the signifier of a scatter plot. 

It intelligibly explains each country of this illustration and the qualities it represents (humblident, real, distilled, and charming).

Finally, Zendesk’s guidelines see a circumstantial conception connected penning actionable CTAs. It covers antithetic types of actions with examples of however to notation them successful a CTA button. 

4. Freed.ai

Freed’s contented benignant guide is functional and packed with examples. It adjacent uses a abbreviated video to explicate what the merchandise does. 

You’ll besides find notes astir the marque property and dependable qualities. 

The usher defines each dependable parameter successful item with bully and atrocious examples to amusement each parameter successful action.

The guidelines see an SEO checklist for creating search-optimized content. 

It focuses connected the E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) and lists enactment items for incorporating these factors into your content. 

5. Shopify

Shopify’s contented benignant usher extensively covers antithetic aspects of contented creation—from grammar to inclusive language. 

The usher is neatly structured into 11 sections. Each leafage uses formatting to make subsections and amended the assemblage astir Shopify’s guidelines. 

It besides stands retired due to the fact that of the assortment of examples utilized crossed each pages. 

Use This Playbook to Design Your Content Style Guide

A contented benignant usher builds a blueprint for each stakeholders to make brand-aligned contented for your business.

It besides brings much uniformity to your contented and reduces inconsistencies, particularly erstwhile moving with a ample team. 

To physique a contented guide, you person to archetypal recognize your assemblage and make scholar personas. 

Then, chalk retired your messaging benignant based connected what resonates with these readers. Find their affectional drivers to specify your benignant astir their preferences. 

Looking to constitute contented that’s ever connected brand? Start with ContentShake AI’s Brand Voice tool.