Content style guides

Basic principles

Our website is a valuable resource for residents and council employees, and it's important that everyone can access and understand the information it offers. Here are some key principles to ensure a consistent and accessible experience.

Do

  • Write clearly and simply. Start with the same question every time: what does the user want to know? 
  • Use acronyms sparingly and define the ones you do use. If you need to use abbreviations, define them on their first use, at the start of a page or at the start of a journey. But it’s best to avoid them if you can. 
  • Make your title unique. Titles on the Knowsley Council website must be unique and informative so that users know which page they are on. Your title should be 65 characters or less (including spaces). 
  • Remove the date unless it makes the title unique. Put the date in the title if the page is part of a series that has the same title. It’s helpful to include the date range if you publish multiple versions of the same information for different periods of time. 
  • Address the user. Address the user as ‘you’ where possible. Content on the site often makes a direct appeal to citizens and businesses to get involved or take action, for example, ‘You can contact HMRC by phone and email’ or ‘Pay your car tax’. 

Do not

  • Use jargon or undefined acronyms.  
  • Write long or complicated sentences. When you use a longer word (8 or 9 letters), users are more likely to skip shorter words (3, 4 or 5 letters) that follow it. So, if you use longer, more complicated words, readers will skip more. Keep it simple. 
  • Do not use formal or long words when easy or short ones will do. Use ‘buy’ instead of ‘purchase’, ‘help’ instead of ‘assist’, and ‘about’ instead of ‘approximately’. 
  • Use idioms or figures of speech. 
  • Use ampersands or other text symbols in place of words. Ampersands are allowed in logos but not in body copy. 
  • Do not include your department name unless it makes the title unique. Only add your department or agency name to the title if the content is about your department – for example annual reports or corporate information. 
  • FAQs are strongly discouraged on the Knowsley Council website.  If you write content by starting with user needs, you will not need to use FAQs. 
  • Capitalisation. DO NOT USE BLOCK CAPITALS FOR LARGE AMOUNTS OF TEXT. IT’S HARD TO READ. 
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