Editorial style: why your website needs to be consistent

One of my key recommendations for writing for the web is that you write in a consistent editorial style.

To write in a consistent style, it’s helpful to have a style guide that you can refer to and add to over time.

A style guide is a set of guidelines that everyone working on your website can use.

Note that a style guide contains guidelines, not rules. You should stick to the style guide where possible, but you can deviate if you have a good reason.

What a style guide covers

At its most basic level, a style guide covers things like:

• capitalisation
• punctuation
• numbers
• bullet points
• spellings for words that might have more than one spelling.

I’ve seen style guides that also cover things like tone of voice, how to write good titles and plain English.

It’s certainly useful to collate all of this information. In my experience, though, it can be valuable to have a self-contained style guide that just covers matters of editorial style.

Why style matters

Sometimes people I work with ask me, ‘Why does it matter that you’ve used a longer dash there and a shorter dash there?’

There are two main reasons why style matters.

1. Consistency

Many points of style are arbitrary. They don’t really matter. For example, some websites put a full stop at the end of a bulleted list, and others don’t. It probably doesn’t really matter whether you do or not.

But it does matter that you do it consistently. Any inconsistency risks slowing your reader down. And on the web, you don’t want to introduce any element that might make it harder for users to get their job done.

If you’re consistent, you look more professional. Not everyone will notice inconsistencies in your work. But many readers will notice – or they might notice on an unconscious level.

Stylistic inconsistencies can:

• make you look unprofessional
• damage readers’ trust in your website
• slow your reader down and make it harder for them to get their job done.

2. Helping users

Some stylistic decisions actually affect how users interact with your content.

For example, we know from readability studies that capital letters make readers pause. Text with lots of capital letters is harder for people to read. So your style guidelines should say something about how often, and in what circumstances, you can use capital letters in the middle of a sentence.

You might have done research that shows that people are more likely to understand one word or phrase than another. For example, do you talk about ‘coronavirus’ or ‘COVID-19’? You might favour the scientifically correct term, but it’s often better to use the term that people are more likely to search for and recognise. You can use a tool like Google Trends to find out which term is more popular.

Your style guidelines should also include names of people and organisations that you’ll commonly refer to. Where possible, choose the form that users are more likely to recognise.

How the web differs from print

Many of the guidelines we’ve talked about will be the same whether you’re working online or on print content.

Often, you’ll find that what’s true in print is even more true on the web. For example, if a style guide for print recommends short sentences, that point might be even more important when you’re writing for the web.

Consider capital letters. Lots of capital letters might be acceptable on a poster, where the reader doesn’t have very many words to look at. But when a reader has a web page to grapple with, lots of capital letters could really make things harder.

Then there are things that might be different when you’re writing on the web.

Numbers are a good example. It’s common in print style guides to have a rule for numbers where at least some of your numbers are written out as words. It’d be very unusual in print to have numbers like ‘one’, ‘two’ and ‘three’ written in digits. It would break convention and might seem a bit odd to the reader.

On the web, many organisations write all numbers as numerals. This is an evidence-based decision: readability studies suggest that this makes it easier for users.

You might also want to add things to your style guide that are specific to the web, such as:

• how you present link text
• how you format contact details.

Benefits of a style guide

I’ve already talked about why style matters. But why do you need a style guide? Why can’t you just make these decisions as you go along, and keep them in your head?

1. Decision-making

The first benefit of a style guide is that you don’t have to make the decisions each time. When you’re working with a style guide, you don’t need to stop and think about things that have already been agreed.

2. Easier to handle disagreements

In a complex organisation, there might be different opinions about certain points of style.

It’s helpful to avoid having these discussions about an individual piece of text.

When you’re trying to get a particular piece of content signed off, you don’t want to have to debate every single point of style. You can just refer to the style guide. And that gives you some authority. Your style guide is (or should be) evidence-based. And it’s been discussed before, so you don’t need to debate things every single time.

3. Preserve research

If you’ve discovered that your users often misunderstand a particular word or phrase, you can put that into your style guide. That way, everyone else who works on your website has access to the same insight.

4. Easier to collaborate

If you outsource some of your editing work, or if someone new is starting, they can look at your style guide. When I start working with a new organisation, I always find it helpful to pore over their style guide. Then I don’t need to ask too many questions about how things are done, or make my own decisions about points of style that have already been agreed.

Do you already have a style guide?

You should check if your organisation already has a style guide. If you work in a big, complex organisation that publishes a lot of information, it’s likely that they do. The style guide might already have guidelines for writing for the web, or it might be more focused on print.

Where possible, use your organisation’s existing style guide. It should help you write consistently and effectively. You should only deviate from that style guide if you have a strong reason to.

Creating a style guide

If your organisation doesn’t have a style guide, you can create one.

Write down any decisions that you make as you go along, and add to it over time.

Here are some of the key things you should include:

• capitalisation of things like names and headings
• numbers, including number ranges, dates and times
• bulleted lists – punctuation and capital letters
• spelling – for example, US or British (and if British, do you use –ise or –ize spellings?).

As mentioned earlier, you might also want to include any key terms and names that your website uses a lot.

Whenever you find new points of style that you want to establish a guideline for, add them to the style guide. You might have the authority just to make those decisions for yourself and jot them down, or you might need to take them to an editorial group or somebody else to sign them off. Either way, once the decision is made, write it down.

Get style guide inspiration

It’s worth looking at other organisations’ style guides when you’re creating yours. For example, the style guides for the BBC and the Guardian are freely available online.

There’s also an admirable attempt at a collaborative, evidence-based web content style guide at The Readability Guidelines.