Once your content has been written, edited and compiled for entry, the next step is to think about how it appears on the page. If you’ve been wondering how to make a web page look better, consistently format your text, photos and other design elements with a simple style guide.
How to Create a Simple Style Guide
Many organizations have basic style guidelines for their brand that outline specific fonts, colors and logo usage among other things. Your website style should be closely aligned, but there are some additional elements, like guidelines for photos and text styling, that you’ll want to create rules around so that your pages all have a similar look and feel.
As you enter content, make notes about your formatting choices and refer to them as you build out each page. This will make it easy to notice and track discrepancies across the site and remind you of how you handled formatting similar content.
What to track in your website style guide:
- Proper use of headers (H2, H3, H4 and never H1, which is often the page title)
- Styling of bulleted or numbered lists
- Use of colored, bold and italic text as well as capitalization
- Standard photo sizes for different locations
- Notes on photo selection and editing
- Formatting captions, citations or credits
- Use of icons and repeating graphics
- Use of borders and horizontal rules
- Use and placement of buttons as links and calls-to-action
- Linking best practices, including carets and new windows
WORKSHEET: Keeping Track of Your Website Style
Formatting a web page isn’t rocket science, but it does require that you pay attention to details. Use this worksheet to keep notes about your style choices as you enter content. Refer back to it for each page to make sure your visitors have a consistent and frustration-free experience.
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Table of Contents
Nowadays, most nonprofits and NGOs around the world have websites. What are you doing to stand out? Invest your time in creating fresh and compelling content to attract supporters. Go to Chapter 1.
Quickly preparing your website content keeps you on track for a timely launch. Stay focused on the goals and set a reasonable timeline for content completion. Go to Chapter 2.
Website content is more than text on a page. Start collecting other types of content that you can re-purpose to make your site more robust, such as photos, newsletter stories and testimonials. Go to Chapter 3.
It can be tempting to take shortcuts, like fixing outdated information after launch. Now is the time to take your nonprofit website to the next level by making a plan for great content. Go to Chapter 4.
Forget that you even know how to copy and paste! Writing for the web just got easier with these 11 tips that will help you stick to best practices. Go to Chapter 5.
Wishing your web pages looked more professional? The secret to great content entry is staying consistent across your site. Keep track of your formatting with a simple website style guide. Go to Chapter 6.
Just because it looked great in a brochure doesn’t mean your text is website-ready. Writing scannable content that engages your supporters boils down to these 8 simple rules. Go to Chapter 7.
Now that you have a handle on the basics, take your nonprofit to the next level with website content that goes above and beyond. Get inspired by examples from real nonprofits! Go to Chapter 8.