Whether you are a copywriter or need to give instructions to your copywriter, this is the guide for you. This guide is for people who are writing copy, that may be in tools like Google docs or it may be in WordPress. If you are writing directly in WordPress, you’ll also want to follow the Adding Content in WordPress guide.
The complete guide with explanations is available as a Google doc, Accessible Content Guidelines.
Basic Content
Content best practices
- Use clear & simple language.
- Limit most sentences to 25 words or less.
- A variety of sentence lengths helps with readability. So mix it up some.
- Limit long words (those with 4 or more syllables) to when necessary.
- Short paragraphs. On the desktop, it shouldn’t be more than 4-5 lines.
- Use contractions, most people like them.
- Use Grammarly or similar grammar-checking tools.
- Write for a 5th-grade reading level.
- Left align the vast majority of your text. Occasionally centered text is ok as long as it does not go on for more than one line. Very occasional right aligned text is ok for a couple of words. This applies to languages written left to right.
Avoid when writing content
- Don’t use fancy formatting within your text editor, this creates problems when transferring content to WordPress.
- Don’t use strikethrough text. It requires special markup for screen readers, as it is read exactly the same as all other text.
- Don’t double-space sentences. One space between the period and the start of the next sentence.
- Justified text is prohibited.
- Don’t change languages within your content. Changing to a different language, even for a single word or two requires special markup.
- Don’t underline text. As a content editor, you should never be using underline. If you need links underlined and they are not, you should contact your developer.
- Don’t use all caps. Don’t use caps lock when writing except for with acronyms. If you have a lot text already written, then use ConvertCase to correct your content.
Headings
Do these when adding headings
- Each page should have exactly one h1 tag. This should be the first heading on the page.
- Use proper heading order. Headings should make a table of contents for your content. Don’t jump from h2 to h4.
Avoid these when adding headings
- Avoid all caps entry. Only acronyms should be written in all caps.
- Don’t use headings for the purpose of styling text.
Links & Buttons
Do these when adding links & buttons
- Be consistent when labeling links. If two links go to the same page, make sure that is clear based on the link text. If two links go to two separate locations, make sure they have different link text.
- Make sure links are clearly understood. “Click here” is poor link text. “Read my article about dinosaurs” is a better link text.
Avoid these when adding links & buttons
- Avoid styling links in your content. Just create a link.
- Avoid adding underlines on links. If your document tool automatically creates underlines on links, leave them. But do not add them yourself.
Images
Do these when adding images
- Source your images from content that is owned by the website or from paid image locations where you can get a license transferrable to the website you are writing for.
- Include links to your image files. Include your images separately using something like Dropbox or Google Drive.
- Name your images with names that clearly identify the image. “Jane Smith 2023 Headshot.jpg” is a good name. “IMG23423.jpg” is not.
- When appropriate, provide captions for an image. These are particularly important when you want to identify people or places in the image.
Avoid these when adding images
- Avoid using “free” stock sites. These sites generally have very lax review processes and people can uploaded content they do not have permission to.
- Avoid embedding images within your document. Just reference which image should be included.
- Don’t use symbols, emojis, and memes.
- Don’t use animated gifs.
- Don’t use text overlayed on an image or text in an image.