{"id":24005,"date":"2014-11-05T11:15:41","date_gmt":"2014-11-05T19:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/content26.com\/?p=24005"},"modified":"2017-02-21T14:19:20","modified_gmt":"2017-02-21T22:19:20","slug":"increase-conversion-with-style-guide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/987654321.space\/c26_dev\/blog\/increase-conversion-with-style-guide\/","title":{"rendered":"Increase Conversion by Flaunting Your Style Guide"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most of us have had this experience. You\u2019re reading a company\u2019s site, perhaps even diving into a product page<\/span><\/a> for deeper information. You\u2019re beginning to consider giving the company your hard-earned nickels for their product or service, when \u2013<\/p>\n

CLANG.<\/p>\n

The worst typo. At the worst place. High-speed internment<\/em> instead of high-speed internet<\/em>, perhaps. Or a mislaid\u00a0L in what should have been clock radio<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Though really, even a less memorable typo, or just an inconsistent spelling of the word gray<\/em>, can be enough to erode a meticulous customer\u2019s confidence and undermine your company\u2019s credibility (and Google rankings). After all, if you can\u2019t manage to clearly describe your products, why should the customer think the product itself will be worth a damn? Or that you\u2019ll be able to get the product to them at all?<\/p>\n

Good news: there\u2019s one crucial document that can protect your company from these avoidable mistakes. How can you develop and execute a consistent, compelling message without driving your editors to decide to join the merchant marines?<\/p>\n

[Tweet “Even a less memorable typo can be enough to erode a meticulous customer\u2019s confidence.”]<\/p>\n

Yes, friends: it\u2019s the STYLE GUIDE. One simple document that can unite all content creators within companies large and small, helping you to create the best user experience possible.<\/p>\n

Say your company has multiple product lines. Multiple writers. Multiple departments. Multiple publication channels. (Perhaps not all of these, but you get my point.) You might want to add products to a product line started six years ago. You might want to bring in new writers to work on an ongoing project. And if you haven\u2019t already, it\u2019s time to start\u00a0expanding into social media<\/a>, a notoriously difficult and fast-paced area of content creation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

An effective style guide will keep everyone on track, whether you\u2019re able to carefully oversee every word your team creates or not.<\/p>\n

Who Are You? Make Sure Consumers Know<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Your company\u2019s brand identity needs to permeate every aspect of a style guide. As\u00a0Copyediting<\/a> says:<\/p>\n

A brand might need to sound informal to strike a chord with its audience. Such text should read the way we talk\u2013or the way we expect it to read. For example, pizza is comfort food. How Pizza Hut talks to its audience reinforces that idea.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What follows is a sentence about multi-meat mayhem that need not be repeated here. But, I will say that the gourmet, brick-oven, continental-style pizzeria down the street should use different language than\u00a0Pizza Hut\u00a0to describe their food. Ensuring that something as potentially nebulous as voice and tone is consistent\u00a0and<\/em> says what you want it to say is difficult, yes. But, as the famous MailChimp style guide<\/a> shows, it’s not impossible.<\/p>\n

And remember,\u00a0you do not control where your content goes<\/a>. Third-party sites will steal your product descriptions and anything else they deem useful for driving traffic to their own sites. If that content is formulated with clear, specific style and personality, you can simply thank all those lazy retailers for helping to promote your business.<\/p>\n

Keep It Consistent: Multichannel Publishing<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Multichannel publishing makes the need for consistency exponentially more important. A few years ago, content26 worked with\u00a0Westinghouse Lighting\u00a0to develop multichannel content for some of their product lines. A vital piece of that project was ensuring consistency<\/a>\u00a0of descriptions, names, measurements, and other information on all platforms, while also working within the constraints of the company\u2019s style. Was this tactic successful? Absolutely. Read the\u00a0case study<\/a>\u00a0for more about that.<\/p>\n

[Tweet “Multichannel publishing makes the need for consistency exponentially more important.”]<\/p>\n

The way Westinghouse Lighting describes a bubble glass lantern has to be the same across channels, and the way it describes all the other lanterns and glass items it sells has to be consistent with that one bubble glass lantern.<\/p>\n

When shopping for the bubble glass lantern, consumers rely on words and pictures.\u00a0When those elements are the same on every page and every website, you have a recognizable brand. When you have a recognizable brand, you build consumer trust.<\/p>\n

Find Your Style<\/strong><\/h2>\n

So, style guides: pretty much invaluable and certainly not optional. Don’t have one yet? Then it\u2019s time to put one together for your company. Don\u2019t panic; comprehensive style guides already exist, and many industries have developed their own to address specific needs a more general style guide wouldn\u2019t address. Choose one of those as your go-to, and explain choices\u00a0specific to your company and industry in your internal guide. The Yahoo! style guide<\/a> is still lionized, and rightfully so. It’s a good base for any company looking to put content online.<\/p>\n

Think about your voice and the feeling you want to give would-be customers. Are you irreverent? Serious? Traditional? Lighthearted? Chances are, you\u2019ll want to adjust the tone for different channels, but, as the first-date clich\u00e9 goes, be yourself.<\/p>\n

What <\/span>format do you want your content to take? There are more choices to make than you might think: headers or a lack thereof, bulleted highlights or not, keeping it simple or bringing design into it by mixing up your colors and fonts.\u00a0How do you want to handle numbers? Abbreviations? What about international content? A glance at any style guide will demonstrate the surprising complexity of seemingly simple issues, so this needs consideration.<\/p>\n

Decide what kind of spin you want to put on your products. If your newest armoire is \u201cspace-saving and minimalist\u201d in one place and \u201cshabby chic\u201d in another, you need to pay more attention to how you frame your wares and include that in your style guide. While you\u2019re at it, make a list of words and phrases to avoid, and add \u201cshabby chic\u201d to that list.<\/p>\n

And, I implore you, do not ever rely on, or let anyone else writing your content rely on, software or in-browser spelling and grammar checks.\u00a0Here\u2019s why<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some reading to get you started:<\/p>\n