A style guide is the reference writers and editors use to keep content consistent. It covers mechanical rules such as spelling, capitalization, punctuation and number formatting, plus company-specific decisions such as product names, banned phrases, inclusive language and how to format headings and links. Many companies base theirs on a published guide, such as AP or the Chicago Manual of Style, and document only their own exceptions.
What to include
A style guide that tries to cover everything will not be read. Focus on decisions writers actually face and get wrong.
- Base reference and spelling standard (for example US English)
- Product and feature names, with correct capitalization
- Terms to use and avoid, including competitor names
- Headings, lists, links and capitalization rules
- Numbers, dates, units and currency
- Accessibility: alt text, link text, readable formatting
- Rules on claims, statistics and sourcing
Style guide versus brand voice
A style guide covers correctness and consistency. Brand voice covers personality: how the company sounds. They are often published together, but they answer different questions.
Making it stick
Keep the guide searchable and short, update it when editors find recurring issues, and build the most common rules into editing checklists or automated linting where possible.
Example
Settling recurring debates
Hypothetical company Crestbarrow found every editor fixing the same issues: inconsistent feature names, mixed date formats and different spellings of "sign up" and "signup". A two-page style guide settles each one, with examples. Editing time on drafts falls because writers check the guide first.
Common mistakes
Writing it and never updating it
Products and terms change. An outdated guide gets ignored.
Too long to use
Writers will not read a fifty-page document. Put the most important rules first.
Questions
Usually not. Adopt a published guide as the base and document only your exceptions and company-specific terms.
