Writing Guidelines
Web users read about 20 percent of the text on a web page. Content that is organized and easy to understand ensures users accomplish their tasks in the brief time we have their attention. This section explains how.
BE CONVERSATIONAL
Think of your website as a conversation with your users. Write as if you’re talking to them face to face. Address them as “you” and make a direct appeal, such as “pay your bill” or “contact us for more information.”
USE CONTRACTIONS
Don't be afraid of contractions. While a higher level of formality is sometimes required—such as in legal documents—in many cases, contractions make your content more like everyday conversation.
USE PLAIN LANGUAGE
Keep your writing simple. Avoid jargon and long sentences. Choose your words carefully.
This isn't "dumbing down"—it’s being clear. Because web users scan to find what they’re looking for, they’re more likely to stumble over big words and long sentences.
TEST FOR READABILITY
Forty-three percent of adults are considered to have lower literacy. To ensure your content will be understood by a wide audience, write for a sixth-grade level. You can test your content’s reading level with a readability checker.
Government is complicated, but our writing shouldn't be. The U.S. Federal Register, the authority for writing federal legal documents, maintains a helpful list of simple alternatives to complex words. Here are a few examples:
| Instead of | Say |
|---|---|
| At this point in time | Now |
| For the purpose of | For |
| A great number of | Many |
| Afford the opportunity to | Allow |
| By virtue of the fact that | Because |
| On a few occasions | Occasionally, sometimes |
| Make modifications | Change |
| To be able to | To |
| On a daily basis | Daily, every day |
USE ACTIVE VOICE
Active sentences describe “who does what”—the subject of the sentence performs the action. In a passive sentence, the subject receives the action.
Active voice is stronger and easier to understand. Use it wherever possible. For example:
- Passive voice: The form below is to be filled out.
- Active voice: Fill out the form below.
CHUNK YOUR CONTENT
Users make the decision to leave or stay on a web page in as little as 10 seconds. One of the biggest factors in their decision is the scannability of content. “Walls of words” are overwhelming. Avoid them.
Instead:
- Break content into short chunks. Present one idea per sentence, and aim for no more than four sentences per paragraph. This provides space between thoughts, allowing users to easily scan your page.
- Organize the page with clear headings and subheadings. Most users look at headings to decide if a page contains what they're seeking. Headings should be direct and concisely summarize the content below them.
- Use bullets. Bullets help users scan without forcing them to read complete sentences. Long, multi-item lists should always be bulleted. (Learn more about formatting bulleted lists.)
DON'T DUPLICATE
Identical content should never appear on multiple pages. Duplicate content decreases the accuracy and rank of search results, confuses users and makes our site more difficult to maintain. Over time it leads to conflicting information and a decrease in user trust.
Whenever you add new content, search to make sure it doesn't already exist on another page. If it does, simply provide a crosslink from your page to relevant or related content. Crosslinking:
- Allows information to appear where it's most relevant, without interrupting the flow of your page
- Prevents duplication and the maintenance issues that come with it
- Adds relevance to search engines
We also don't want to duplicate content from another website on the County website. If the information you would like to promote is already featured on another website, you can link to that website if it is a reputable source.
For details and suggestions on creating effective links, see Links in the A to Z style section.
CREATE PAGES, NOT PDFS
PDFs are easy to create, but they're not a good way to present information on the web.
Wherever possible, convert PDF content to an HTML page. Some circumstances require PDFs (for example, engineering drawings or signed judge’s orders), but most PDF documents can be easily converted to pages.
THE TRUTH ABOUT PDFS
The World Bank recently concluded that one-third of their PDFs have never been downloaded. For Baltimore County, PDF downloads account for less than one percent of all site traffic. Of the 14,000 PDFs currently available on our site, only 2,000 were downloaded at least 500 times in 2017. Over 30 percent were downloaded fewer than 10 times.
Advantages of web pages:
- Load more quickly than PDFs
- Easier for users to scan and search
- Simpler to update
- Easier to read on mobile devices
- More accessible to users with disabilities
AVOID FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQS)
Frequently asked questions are a deprecated content element on County websites. FAQ information should be reformatted per good web practice for "chunking" information and adding helpful headers.
FAQs aren't considered good practice for a number of reasons—specifically, they result in duplicate content and are usually more of a writer's brain dump rather a thoughtful approach to content and user experience.