Use a style guide to keep the site consistent

At any given time, some aspects of every language are in transition. For example, many words come into English with a hyphen, like “e-mail,” and over time lose the hyphen. But different people and different organizations are at different places in the transition. Some still use the hyphen; others don’t. To have a consistent web site, you have to decide where your site is in that transition.

Remember that we discussed web sites’ personalities in Chapter 3. Organizations, like their web sites, have personalities and corporate cultures. (And that’s true for all types of organizations and communities, not only for businesses. Government agencies, universities, non-profits, listservs, other online communities all have their own cultures.) Language is an important aspect of any culture: how formal or colloquial the language should be (“cannot” or “can’t”?); what is acceptable usage (“each person ... they”?); how words are used (“website” or “web site”?).

A style guide can help authors and editors keep a web site consistent. In fact, even if you are the only author (doing a blog, perhaps), a short “cheat sheet” style guide may be useful. I’ve created one for this book, so I don’t have to look back at other chapters to remind myself that, for this book, at least, it’s “web site” and “web” and “Internet.’

A style guide can also help by reminding authors and editors of points of grammar, spelling, and usage that are not in transition but that many people aren’t sure about, such as, “affect” versus “effect,” “that” versus “which,” or “its” versus “it’s.” Figures Interlude 3-1 and Interlude 3-2 show you the beginning of the table of contents and one entry from the style guide for a web site.

Figure Interlude 3-1 Part of the table of contents of a style guide for web writers. (ATD is a made-up name, but the screen is based on a real example that I developed with a client’s web team.)

Figure Interlude 3-2 One entry from the style guide.

Don’t reinvent

If you work in a large organization, first find out if other style guides already exist. If there is a corporate style guide, consider how applicable it is to your web site. Don’t just ignore it. Work with whoever owns it to turn it into the organic, online style guide you need.

Don’t repeat the entire universe in your style guide. Many excellent general style guides exist for writing grammatical English. Pick one and have all the web writers agree to use it.

Focus instead on what the web writers aren’t sure about or what they argue about.

Appoint an owner

As with any web content, a style guide needs an “owner.” Someone must be responsible and accountable for writing and maintaining it. The owner might convene a committee that represents different groups within the organization so that there is communication both ways between authors/editors and the style guide owner.

Make it easy to create, to find, and to use

Here are several tips for creating a usable and useful style guide: