A content marketing style guide lays out your brand’s unique voice, tone, and grammar style to ensure your messaging stays consistent, no matter the channel.

We’ve said it before, we’ll say it again: the content marketing you publish is often your target audience’s first impression of you.

Whether through ad copy or search engine-optimized blog posts, you want your brand’s voice to come through immediately and accurately every time.

A content marketing style guide can help make that happen. These guides allow your team (and anyone else you partner with for content) to create cohesive, on-brand content at scale without reinventing the wheel every time someone opens a new Google Doc.

Below, we hear from HawkSEM Content Marketing Manager Patience Hurlburt-Lawton about how to create a stellar style guide that helps your brand’s content shine.

What is a content marketing style guide?

A content marketing style guide is a static or living document and codifies your brand’s voice, tone, and grammar style.

It can also include specific info and guidelines about your overall brand, such as:

  • Fonts and typography preferences
  • Color palette
  • Imagery
  • Filters
  • Text styling
  • Formatting rules
  • Accessibility standards
  • Editorial preferences

What’s more, “a content style guide keeps your brand voice consistent and, ultimately, saves time,” says Hurlburt-Lawton. “A solid style guide also makes it possible to seamlessly grow your content department and train new contributing writers or team members.”

Having an updated style guide is helpful for everything from blogs, ad campaign messaging, and website copy to social media posts, physical collateral, hiring verbiage, and everything in between.

Without one, you could risk content with inconsistent messaging, mismatched tone, and marketing that feels disconnected from what your customers are looking for.

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Before you build a style guide from scratch, it’s wise to audit the content you already have.(Image: Unsplash)

How to create a content marketing style guide: 6 steps

Ready to get your guide going? Good news: It doesn’t need to be overly complicated.

The key is documenting the standards your team already uses, then refining them into a centralized resource everyone can reference.

1. Review existing content

Before you build a style guide from scratch, it’s wise to audit the content you already have.

To start, look through content types like:

  • Blog posts
  • Website copy
  • Social media content
  • Email newsletters
  • Video scripts
  • Paid ad campaigns
  • Case studies
  • Infographics
  • Sales materials

As you review your content, look for patterns. What content performs well? Which pieces sound the most “on brand”? Where are there inconsistencies in tone, formatting, or messaging?

This way, you can identify your existing voice and tone, and fine-tune from there.

Pay attention to different content types

Your brand voice may shift slightly depending on the platform or audience.

For example, social posts may be more conversational, while whitepapers may sound more authoritative. Your style guide can (and should) account for those nuances.

Ask questions like:

  • How would we describe our brand identity in one sentence?
  • What adjectives describe our brand’s personality?
  • How can our writing style reflect our personality and mission?
  • What type of language resonates with our target audience?
  • What phrases or terms should we avoid?
  • Are there any inconsistencies we need to work to address?

2. Get clear on voice and tone

There are subtle differences between “voice” and “tone.”

Your brand voice is your company’s consistent personality. On the other hand, your tone may change depending on the audience, platform, or funnel stage.

For example, a healthcare company may maintain an emotion-driven, trustworthy brand voice while adjusting tone based on whether they’re writing a blog post, customer support email, or social media response.

Defining both clearly helps content creators make better decisions without multiple revision requests.

Find your voice

Defining your brand voice means determining factors like:

  • “Who” your brand is (and is not)
  • Word choice: words or phrases you commonly use (and those you avoid)
  • Preferred sentence structure
  • Ideal reading level

Here’s a sneak peek of how HawkSEM defines its voice when it comes to our content strategy:

Determine your tone

While brand tone may be less set in stone, it’s important to know the best ways to shift it depending on the goal for that particular piece of content.

For example, the tone you take for a 101-type blog post that targets upper-funnel audience members might be different from how you approach the tone for a landing page.

Different types of content also require different tones:

  • Blog content – Educational, actionable, SEO-friendly, authoritative
  • Social media – Conversational, engaging, concise
  • Email marketing – Personalized, direct, benefit-focused
  • Sales collateral – Clear, persuasive, data-backed

Pro tip: Consider including examples, as Mailchimp suggests, to drive home your voice and tone recommendations, whether it’s snippets of content or links to pages on your website.

3. Codify your style guide

Once you’ve established your voice and editorial preferences, it’s time to formalize everything into one document.

“Break your guide into categories, like brand voice and tone, company values, editorial rules, and formatting,” says Hurlburt-Lawton.

“Within each category, document how your brand communicates through content: Are you witty and conversational, or professional and serious? What are your company’s opinions on common topics? Do you use a space between your em-dashes? Do you use title case or sentence case for your headers?”

Here are some common sections to include.

Editorial standards:

  • Grammar rules
  • Oxford comma and abbreviation usage
  • Capitalization and punctuation rules
  • Numeral and date formatting
  • Acronym usage
  • AI guidelines

Formatting standards:

  • Heading structure
  • Bullet point usage
  • CTA formatting
  • Link formatting
  • Ideal paragraph lengths
  • Accessibility best practices
  • Search engine optimization guidelines

SEO standards:

  • Header hierarchy (H1, H2, etc.)
  • Keyword placement
  • Internal linking
  • Meta description guidelines
  • Alt text rules
  • Recommended readability scores (If you use a plug-in like Yoast)

This helps ensure content creators are keeping both people and search engines in mind.

Pro tip: Pick an official grammar style you can refer to for various specific style questions for consistency, such as AP Style or Chicago Manual of Style. That way, your internal guide doesn’t need to answer every possible grammar question.

4. Finalize and get official sign-off

Before rolling out your style guide company-wide, make sure all the necessary team members and stakeholders review and approve it.

You can consider having everyone on the team review it in Google Docs so multiple team members can add in their easily-tracked edit suggestions. This ensures transparency and that the guide is as thorough as possible.

Along with your content team, ensure the higher-ups and any necessary legal or compliance team members have checked things out and given your guide the OK. From there, you can keep it as an editable, shareable doc or as a view-only PDF that is regularly revisited as needed (more on that below).

5. Share and disseminate your guide

Once you’ve created your guide, it’s time to get the word out.

Share the final style guide with all of your content team, other creators, and anyone else who requires or benefits from having it, such as your sales, customer service, and design team members as well.

6. Plan to revisit your guide as needed

Again, a style guide is best used as a living document that can be built out and modified as needed. As your business grows and evolves, your target audience might as well, which means your messaging might need to follow suit.

“Whenever there’s a recent change, a gradual shift in our content style, or a question that isn’t answered in our guide, that’s an indicator that it’s time for an update,” says Hurlburt-Lawton.

“Otherwise, I consider it best practice to revisit a brand style guide at least once every year to check in and make sure everything is up-to-date.”

You can create a recurring calendar or project management reminder to check in periodically and see if everything still accurately reflects your content goals.

Pro tip: To ensure your guide is adopted properly across your business, consider hosting a short presentation or sharing a one-sheeter that introduces the new guide and summarizes the main points.

Content Marketing Style Guide Template

  • Review existing content
    • Pay attention to different content types
  • Get clear on voice and tone
    • Find your voice
    • Determine your tone
  • Codify your style guide
    • Editorial standards
    • Formatting standards
    • SEO standards
  • Finalize your guide
    • Get official sign off
  • Share and disseminate your guide
    • Host a walkthrough
    • Share a one-sheeter summary
  • Plan to revisit your guide as needed
    • Create a recurring reminder to revisit

Why a content marketing style guide matters

If this seems like a hefty load on the front end, you may be wondering why creating a style guide matters.
Put simply, there is more digital marketing content than ever before, which means standing out from your competitors is also harder than ever.

Consistency is part of creating high-quality content that will show up on the search engine results page (SERP) and be primed to stand the test of time. After all, SEO is a marathon, not a sprint.

Plus, a guide style offers benefits like:

  • The ability to maintain brand trust
  • Improved efficiency
  • A more streamlined content creation process
  • Building a voice your audience recognizes

The takeaway

Creating a content marketing style guide is one of the most valuable investments you can make in your SEO strategy.

A strong guide gives your team a shared foundation for creating content that is cohesive, reflects your brand identity, and supports your SEO strategy at every stage of the funnel.

“Start with the big stuff and fill in the gaps — it can be pretty overwhelming to start documenting a brand’s style,” Hurlburt-Lawton says.

“Just remember you can add as you go. This is a living document that will ultimately save you a lot of time after the initial investment.”

Need more help priming your SEO and content strategies for long-term success? Our award-winning digital marketing agency can help you do just that — contact us today to find out how.

Dev Sam

Dev Sam