Consistency is Key

July 6, 2010 | by Cindy Thomason | Posted in Web Content

As organizations continue to grow their online presence the need for accuracy and attention to detail in content is sometimes lost in the desire to impress visually.

You can communicate more effectively with your audience if your website reflects consistency and clarity in both its message and image. You want to present a tone of professionalism and credibility.

To ensure consistency it is important that your organization establish editorial guidelines, or a style guide, to be followed in all electronic and print communications. This style guide will be used to ensure a consistent editorial style for such things as punctuation, hyphenation, capitalization, and abbreviations.

Your organization may follow the AP Stylebook, APA Style, The Chicago Manual of Style, or maybe you’ll come up with your own style that fits your organization’s needs.

Some style issues to consider are:

• format of phone numbers - 703-451-8675, (703)451-8675 or 703.451.8675
• e-mail vs. email
• format of time (4:00pm, 4:00 PM or 4:00 p.m.)
• use of serial commas before "and"
• spacing (single space after period vs. double space after period)

You should also include standards for use of fonts, hyperlinks, and graphics.

It may be necessary to have some styles different for web vs. print. For example, on a website text should not be underlined for emphasis. Use bold instead. Underlining on a website indicates a hyperlink. You don’t want your readers trying to click on links that aren’t there.

Of course a style guide is no good if no one uses it. Make sure all staff have a copy of the style guide. Staff should be informed that these guidelines are considered standard and mandatory.