Why am I writing this content? Who am I talking to? What do I want to say?
Sweat the small stuff
- Give your page a clear, unique, meaningful title
- Add a description element to key pages, and anywhere RSS is enabled
- Keywords not normally necessary
- Breadcrumb text & URLS should make sense
Give away the prize
- Always summarise your page first. This is all many people will read.
- Use regular, meaningful subheadings
- Page too hard to summarise?
Is everything a list that could be?
- 10 items at most – don’t overwhelm
- Clear context – particularly for longer lists
- Keywords pushed to the front
- Navigation menus are lists too – no more than 9 items for these
Tell your visitors where to go
- Use well-written, meaningful links that make sense out of context
- Keep these out of the flow of the text
- Add calls to action at key points
Editorial tips and style guide highlights
- Don’t use ALL CAPS – it’s shouting
- Be concise
- Use the active voice
- Sentence case, not title case
- British spelling
