Learn how to create a style manual for your blog , discover with Posicionamiento Web Salamanca the importance of this document for your content marketing strategy. This will allow for greater clarity in the style with which you want to write, and will avoid problems if you have more than one writer in your company; it is a writing guide. A bad document to accept your editorial guidelines could lead to failure, since you would be sending an inconsistent message.
Learn more about the style manual
Style guides are not new. They have been used for hundreds of years, especially in print media, to define standards and teach new writers. They are not a tool to teach or train writers to use grammar and spelling correctly. Instead, think of them as an aid to gaining editing expertise and to provide guidance.
This concept from traditional media can be tied into your content colombia telegram lead strategy, allowing you to fine-tune your brand’s voice online and give you a more consistent tone. It can be very useful if you plan to hire a couple of full-time writers or if you plan to use the services of a freelance writer, a style guide will help your inbound marketing team write in the same voice.
A style manual dictates guidelines on phrases and sentences, links, punctuation, and how the layout should look. It is a reference tool, not a long, extensive, compulsory reading book. It is very useful for those moments when you are writing and you wonder whether you should put a period after a question mark or not; in the manual you will find the answer to that question.
It helps clarify specific questions and makes everything on your blog look the same, so the reader will have a unique experience reading what different writers write.
Why should you have a style guide?
There are several reasons why you should have a style guide for your blog. Keep reading this list to learn more:
You accept guest posting : If you accept guest posts on your blog, you should have this manual. Surely, when you do this, you have sent the guest a list of what you expect them to do in their post, but not a style manual as such, just an approximation of the idea of what a post should be like. But a manual is a better approximation.
You have multiple writers – having multiple writers means there are different writing styles. Why the need? Maybe one writer uses a lot of h2 headers and another uses none, so a style guide will make it clear what posts should look like, useful if your team is in different cities. Writers will be free to do their work, in their own style, but they should first read your guidelines and apply them.
You don't have an editor : If your blog has a person who reviews and edits posts before they're published, you may not need a style guide urgently. But if the editor doesn't do all the polishing for posts, then a shortened style guide will be helpful, because writers will have some basic suggestions for post layout.
It allows you to have a brand identity : content creation requires time, money and effort, if you invest in content marketing it is best to do it well to ensure success. With a manual you can be consistent, this makes readers feel better.
You are guaranteed quality content : Writers will not have any issues with formatting, language or style. Their focus should be on writing, and they should not worry so much about how the post should be structured.
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How to get a distinctive voice for your blog?
Your blog's identity is crucial. It should have a consistent style so that readers can easily recognize it. Mistakes such as one post being humorous and the other having an authoritarian tone can confuse readers. Likewise, details of punctuation and spelling all affect the blog's authority.
Editors should be in charge of finding the blog's voice , but not everyone has the skills to do that, perhaps they don't have the confidence to edit other people's articles, so that they match the blog's voice, so that it is identified in the same way as the rest of the content.
Being a good editor takes time and effort, so it is recommended that you first think about the reason why you have that website, what do you want to achieve with it? Then, you will be able to understand what the appropriate tone will be (sarcastic, authoritative, funny, cynical, conversational, etc.); you will also be able to feel what the rhythm will be like, whether there will be too many spaces or not.
Once you have defined the above, you must ensure that your content is consistent with these feelings.
Learn how to create a style guide for your blog
What elements should it have?
Style guides: provide a reference for basic grammar rules, you can clarify exceptions to the rule about your brand, tone and style. Highlight the rules for writing about your company, for example: what to capitalize (product name, brands, among others), what to abbreviate and what not to, follow the rules of the RAE (Royal Spanish Academy).
Words that create confusion : There are terms from different industries whose spelling is not universally accepted. Digital marketing is one such industry, as are: ebook, e-book, ebook; internet vs. internet; or tweeting vs. tweeting; and we could go on with a long list. If you have a company with a presence in different parts of the world, you should include notes about whether you change the way you spell words for certain markets.