How to Create an Effective Content Style Guide (+ Examples)

Creating a content style guide ensures your content is recognizable, relatable, and trustworthy across every platform.

At Semrush, we’ve developed our own content style guide, and I’m here to share tips directly from that process.

I’ll walk you through the essentials of building a style guide. I'll also share practical examples and best practices you can start using right away.

What Is a Content Style Guide?

A content style guide is a document that defines your brand’s voice, tone, values, and style for creating content. It specifies how you should speak to your audience whatever the content format. 

It also acts as a subset of your brand style guide. It focuses on written content, such as articles, landing pages, emails, and more. 

The goal? To reflect your unique brand personality and deliver a consistent experience.

Here’s the essence of it:

Why Do You Need a Content Style Guide?

Building a content style guide takes time and effort.

But let me assure you, it totally pays off when you do it right.

Here’s what you can do with a content style guide:

1. Build a Unique Brand Identity

Are people able to recognize your brand even without seeing your logo? 

A content style guide helps ensure they can, by defining your brand’s voice and tone. 

For example, if your brand is casual and approachable, your guide should recommend using conversational language and avoiding technical jargon. 

This keeps your messaging consistent, whether you're working with internal teams or external writers. 

The result is content that invariably reflects your brand’s personality and resonates with your audience.

2. Improve Content Quality and Scalability

Managing a large team of creators is a hassle. 

For example, here at Semrush, we have a complex content creation process, with multiple in-house and freelance writers and editors.

Our content style guide helps us ensure quality control across the board, and speeds up the entire process.

We can simply refer to the specific parts of the guide when leaving requesting edits and creating briefs.

All this is essential if you also want to scale your content production.

3. Establish Consistent Messaging Across Content Assets

We also distribute content across various channels, such as email, blog, social media, and even support tickets.

Our content style guide helps everyone on the team adopt a consistent voice and tone, no matter the platform. 

In the same way, a content style guide can ensure your team speaks with a unified voice across all channels. 

This consistency builds trust and recognition with your audience, creating a familiar and positive experience at every touchpoint.

What to Include in Your Content Style Guide

Ready to build (or revamp) your content style guide? 

It’s important to strike a balance between covering all important points and making sure you don’t overwhelm your team.

The key items you should include are:

• Company background
• Brand voice and tone
• Writing style
• Grammar guidelines
• Brand terminology

Let’s look at each of them in detail.

Company Background

Start your style guide with a primer on your brand. Help writers and editors understand your brand and your target audience.

Include information about your:

• Brand story: Add a brief history of your brand and its objectives. For example: "Founded in 2010 to revolutionize digital payments, our brand prioritizes simplicity and security for all users."
• Target audience: Share key information about your buyer personas, including demographic and psychographic details: “Our key audience is made up of tech-savvy entrepreneurs who are looking for seamless, efficient payment solutions."
• Brand mission and vision: List your long-term goals and the impact you want to make: "Our mission is to simplify global payments, and our vision is to be the world’s most trusted digital wallet."
• Brand personality traits: Highlight the core qualities that define how your brand should be perceived: "We’re approachable, innovative, and trustworthy—and always put customers first."

For example, here’s how Atlassian documents its brand personality in its style guide. These guidelines clarify the language to use when creating content for the brand. 

Source 

Brand Voice and Tone 

After introducing your brand identity, your guide should outline what your brand sounds like when communicating with the world. 

Document your brand voice and tone to help content creators speak the same language. Here’s how:

• Voice: Draw on your brand personality traits to create an ideal voice for your brand. It can be playful, witty, formal, motivational, or anything that represents your identity. 
• Tone: Create guidelines for adjusting the tone and language used in different scenarios (e.g., different channels). The brand tone should match the mood of the situation, while also reflecting your brand voice. 

For example, Help Scout’s content guide explains the six parameters of its brand voice and tone. Content creators should aim to be “confident, but not arrogant”, “fun, but not silly”, and so on.

These parameters are their guiding principles for creating thoughtful, high-quality content for the brand.

💡 Pro tip: You can use specialized AI writing tools to define and apply your brand voice automatically. It’s a good idea to use content from important pages such as the “About Us” section.

For example, ContentShake AI lets you create a unique brand voice based on your writing samples. 

You simply open “Brand Voice”, upload your writing samples, and click “Create Brand Voice”.

ContentShake will generate a brand voice description that reflects the essence of your brand. You can tweak and edit it as needed.

You can check what it will look like before you publish. 

From then on, ContentShake will create content that always sounds like your brand, and check that your existing content is aligned with your voice.

Writing Style 

Your writing style defines how exactly your brand communicates through words, ensuring a unified voice across all content. It refers to your unique preferences, including:

• Narrative point of view: first, second, or third person
• English conventions: spelling, grammar, regional language variations
• Readability levels: preferred reading level and complexity for your audience
• Capitalization: how to capitalize headings, titles, and specific terms
• Word choice: preferred terms and those to avoid
• Tone variations: how the tone should shift, based on content type or platform

For example, Uniqode’s content style guide documents the brand’s various writing styles and outlines relevant exceptions. 

Grammar Guidelines

Your content style guide should also include grammatical instructions for writing readable content. 

They help reduce errors and maintain a clear, professional tone across all content. 

You should include guidance on the following:

• Active voice
• Punctuation
• Noun/adverb usage
• Regional variations
• Any other key grammar points

Remember that this section can overlap with your writing style guidelines. 

You should categorize grammar-related points under a separate “Grammar” section, and structural choices under “Writing Style.” 

Make sure there’s no confusion between the two by being specific about where each rule applies.

Here’s an example from Shopify’s content style guide. 

It addresses multiple elements, like dates, numbers, addresses, brand terms, etc. The examples are great for driving home these instructions.

Source 

Brand Terminology and Language

Next, include a list of brand-specific terms or naming conventions.

Imagine you have a SaaS business. You should create a list of named features explaining their functionalities. For example:

• Instant Transfer: A feature allowing users to send money immediately across accounts with no delays
• Pro Plan: The premium subscription offering advanced features

You can also add guidelines for using inclusive language, nudging writers and editors to be mindful of their audience and create a respectful reader experience.

For instance, this could include guidance on using “they” instead of “he” or “she” when referring to a person whose gender is unknown or irrelevant.

The Blogsmith added a section on inclusive language in its content style guide. It defines the ideal reading level and suggests ways to achieve this with some language changes.

What Not to Include in Your Writing Style Guide

Not everything deserves a space in your content style guide. 

To be truly effective and helpful, your guide should always be clear and to the point. That’s why I recommend not including the following sections:

• Visual guidelines: You can cover this as part of your brand style guide, which includes instructions about your branding colors, typeface, design style, and more. 
• Information about internal processes and communications: These instructions bloat your guide. It’s best to detail them in a separate document.
• Extended info about your business and market: It’s important to add high-level details about your company. However, I’d avoid overloading writers with information that won’t impact their work, such as detailed competitive analysis.

How to Create a Content Style Guide

You’re now all set to follow the step-by-step process of creating your content style guide. 

1. Identify Your Target Audience

First, make sure that your guidelines are based on a solid understanding of your existing audience.

Instead of starting from scratch, refer to your established customer personas and previous audience research. 

These personas already provide valuable insights into your audience, what they care about, and how they engage with your content.

Here’s how this information could shape your style guide:

• Demographics: Factors such as age, gender, education, and profession can influence the tone, word choice, and complexity of the content. For example, a younger, tech-savvy audience may prefer more casual and conversational language.
• Psychographics: Attitudes, values, and pain points also impact how we talk. For example, if your audience values innovation, your content should reflect that through forward-thinking and fresh language. 
• Preferred communication style: Audience research can reveal what resonates most with your customers. Do they prefer direct, on-point communication, or engage more with creative storytelling? Let this shape your language in the style guide.

Maze incorporates their buyer personas into their content style guide to give writers helpful context. 

These personas tell writers and editors exactly who they’re writing for, so they can create more relevant content for each persona. For example:

2. Document Your Ideal Messaging Style

Once you know your audience well, develop a unique messaging style that will resonate with your target personas. Here’s how:

Factor in Your Core Values

Revisit your brand’s mission and values to guide your messaging voice. Your style should reflect the principles that best represent your brand. 

For example, Shopify centers its voice guidelines around its mission statement: "We’re a company built by real people who understand this business and care about helping others succeed." 

Each guideline is an extension of Shopify’s core values: be real, be proactive, and so on. 

Identify Emotional Triggers

Determine what emotions you want to evoke through your messaging—trust, excitement, comfort. 

You can tie your language guidelines to the emotions that make your audience want your product or service. 

For example, reducing administrative busywork is one of the emotional triggers in Jetstream’s content guide. 

Source

Find Competitive Differentiators

Another critical aspect of defining your messaging style is finding an edge over your competitors. 

Audit your competitors’ messaging and craft a unique, approachable, and customer-centric communication style to help your brand stand out. 

 Pay close attention to:

• Tone: Are your competitors formal or casual? Do they take a conversational or corporate approach?
• Message focus: Do they highlight innovation, customer service, or expertise? How do they frame their value propositions?
• Engagement style: How do they interact with their audience? Are they customer-focused, informative, or purely transactional?

From here, you can define your target tone, voice, and the other elements we discussed above.

3. Choose Formatting Guidelines

Consistent formatting makes your content easier to read and creates a more professional look. 

You can define your own formatting guidelines based on personal preferences or use a specific stylebook, such as AP, MLA, APA, Chicago. Here are a few details to cover under formatting:

• Headings/subheadings 
• Capitalization 
• Callout boxes 
• Alignment 
• Listicles 
• Tables 
• Bold and italics 

The better your formatting guidelines, the more visually appealing content you can create. This also brings uniformity in content assets across the board. 

Here’s how Intuit’s content style guide lays down the rules for using different formatting elements, such as bold, italics, capitalization. 

Crisp instructions with examples and helpful notes make it easier for writers to understand and follow these guidelines. 

4. Create a Vocabulary of Brand Terminology 

Within your content style guide, you can create a dictionary for your brand’s own unique language. 

This will help writers and creators use the right words with the correct context. 

Make this dictionary as easy yet extensive as possible. Include all the commonly used terms and brand-specific words and phrases. 

Zendesk’s writing guide presents a great example. 

It includes a “Words we use” section with a long list of terms and phrases relevant to Zendesk, often with usage instructions and examples. 

Source

5. Add Examples to Contextualize Your Guidelines

To finish your content style, revisit every section and add examples wherever possible. 

Examples instantly clarify how to implement a specific guideline. They work even better when you contrast a good example with a bad one. 

If you’re adding short examples, you can include various uses. However, for longer examples, just select a few options to avoid overwhelming writers. 

Here’s how Uniqode’s style guide uses on- and off-brand examples to explain the brand voice.

Source 

Top 5 Content Style Guide Examples to Inspire Yours

Finally, let’s break down five amazing examples of a content style guide. Save these as references to structure and design your guide. 

1. Semrush 

Semrush’s content guidelines are one part of our extensive communications style guide, which covers many aspects of our brand. 

It also shares insights about our brand voice and tone, editorial style, and how to write for different channels. 

My favorite part is that it includes crisp and clear instructions in every section, such as the voice and tone section lists defining key emotions. 

You’ll also find related adjectives, best practices, and examples to implement each emotional tone. 

2. Atlassian

Atlassian’s content style guide is a great example of an in-depth writing guide. It breaks down the best practices for:

• Vocabulary 
• Writing style
• Voice and tone
• Inclusive language 
• Language and grammar 

Each section is neatly organized in a sticky table of contents, so you can easily navigate to any part of the guide. 

I love that the guidelines mention examples and usage instructions where relevant. This makes it easier for writers and editors to follow these guidelines contextually. 

3. Zendesk

Zendesk’s content style guide outlines the defining principles of its brand voice and provides a checklist of five key points for creating brand content.

The voice and tone section of the guide provides a detailed framework for incorporating the Zendesk brand voice in the form of a scatter plot. 

It clearly explains each area of this chart and the qualities it represents (humblident, real, distilled, and charming).

Finally, Zendesk’s guidelines include a specific section on writing actionable CTAs. It covers different types of actions with examples of how to mention them in a CTA button. 

4. Freed.ai

Freed’s content style guide is functional and packed with examples. It even uses a short video to explain what the product does. 

You’ll also find notes about the brand personality and voice qualities. 

The guide defines each voice parameter in detail with good and bad examples to show each parameter in action.

The guidelines include an SEO checklist for creating search-optimized content. 

It focuses on the E-E-A-T framework (Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trustworthiness) and lists action items for incorporating these factors into your content. 

5. Shopify

Shopify’s content style guide extensively covers different aspects of content creation—from grammar to inclusive language. 

The guide is neatly structured into 11 sections. Each page uses formatting to create subsections and educate the audience about Shopify’s guidelines. 

It also stands out because of the variety of examples used across all pages. 

Use This Playbook to Design Your Content Style Guide

A content style guide builds a blueprint for all stakeholders to create brand-aligned content for your business.

It also brings more uniformity to your content and reduces inconsistencies, especially when working with a large team. 

To build a content guide, you have to first understand your audience and create reader personas. 

Then, chalk out your messaging style based on what resonates with these readers. Find their emotional drivers to define your style around their preferences. 

Looking to write content that’s always on brand? Start with ContentShake AI’s Brand Voice tool.