This page will discuss the guidelines and regulations for putting content on the RCC website. The page itself can also be used as a guide to styling your content.

Writing Guidelines (Heading 2)

Write for your audience (Heading 3)

Provide them with the information they are searching for in a language that is clear and concise. Remove as much internal ‘lingo’ and jargon as possible and utilize wordage that all visitors can understand. Writing for the web is very different than writing for print. Your job is to make whatever information the visitor is looking for as easy to find as possible.

Be Concise (Heading 3)

Make your sentences short and to the point. Break your content down into smaller, scan-able sections. Link to extra pages for very detailed content, or content that is only of interest to a minority of readers. If you’re having trouble being concise try this exercise. Write a rough draft of your content in Microsoft Word, perform a word count and cut the number of words in half. Now re-write your content to fit that number of words. Then perform the word count again, cut the number in have again (yes, again) and re-write for that amount of words.

Be Relevant

Provide what is necessary to the user and remove all unnecessary content.

Put important information at the top

Readers need to know at a glance what the page is about and whether it will interest them. Make sure your first heading and paragraph make this clear. When it comes to websites, we don’t like mystery novels.  Users want to know what they are looking at, immediately.

Use one idea per paragraph

Paragraphs don’t have to be 5 sentences. Sentences can be 5 words. Writing for the web is very different than writing for print, use simple language and provide information in the most stream-lined, logical way possible.

Provide a call to action

Include a call to action, such as a link, a phone number, a form, etc on your pages. Readers should either know something they didn’t know before, or be able to do something they couldn’t do before.

Only publish what you can manage

Content is now under a mandatory quarterly review. If you don’t have the time to check each page at least once every three months, you should reduce the size of your section.

Style Guidelines (Heading 2)

While we have limited your options for typography to promote a uniform look and feel to our website, you still have many powerful tools to style your content and make it readable to your users.

Headings and subheadings (Heading 3)

Use the format drop-down to format text as a Heading. Heading 1 should never be used because the title of your page will be a heading 1. Use Heading 2, Heading 3, and Heading 4 to create a hierarchy of content on your pages.

Alignment

All content should be left-aligned. If you have a need for non-left aligned content please consult the webmaster.

Paragraphs

Paragraphs by default have an extra line break added to the end of them to help users with readability. You can use this to your advantage by create short paragraphs to break up the flow of text on your pages.

Lists

• The unordered list button creates list items with
• equal importance
• separated by a dot

1. The ordered list button creates list items
2. distinguished by numbers
3. creating an order

Lists are a great way to break up long sections of content. Summarize your page and use list items to display a short overview of the content.

Text-formatting

• Use italics to emphasize content as opposed to bold or all caps.
• Bold text is used to distinguish headings. It is harder to read that italicized font and therefore should not be used to emphasize content.
• Bold and italics should be used sparingly. If you find you need to italicize an entire paragraph, you most-likely need to re-write the content so that only a few words need emphasis.
• Do not use bold italics
• Do not use ALL CAPS unless you are referring to an acronym or abbreviation.
• All text options are pre-formatted, therefore you should not change the color of any text in your content without consulting the webmaster
• Do not underline any text that is not a hyperlink. This confuses the user and should be avoided at all costs.

Images

Images are a great way to liven up web pages filled with text and is part of the reason why we have included more images in our templates. However, overuse of images creates longer load times for visitors. We encourage the use of 1-2 images per page if the images accurate represent the college and also add value to your content.

If you keep it simple and write for your audience, not yourself or your supervisor you will be well on your way to creating great content for our website visitors. If you have any questions, email the webmaster.