Sage Website Style Guide


Index

Content

Architecture

Graphic Design

Writing for the Web

- Presenting Text on the Web
- Inverted Pyramid Style of Writing
- Plain and Clear Language
- Sentence and Paragraph Length
- Hyperlink Text
- Error Message and Form Validation Text

Microcontent

- Alt Tags
- Page Title Standards
- Meta Tags
- Headings
- Introductory Paragraphs
- Image Filenames

Miscellaneous

- Standardised Text
- Website Directory Guidelines
- Accessibility Guidelines
- Text as Images

Glossaries

- Glossary of Style
- Glossary of Terms

Website Directory Guidelines - Miscellaneous

Updated: 23rd July 2001

Adding entries

  • Check that the website exists (is published and reasonably complete).
  • Check that the website uses Sage WebTools.
  • Check that the url is correct.
  • Check the EXACT company name (including capitalisation, punctuation, hyphenation, suffixes such as plc or Ltd,)
  • Spell-check the description.
  • Keep the description to 30 words or less. (We actually cut them down to 170 characters including spaces but 30 words is easier to work towards when getting a description from the customer.)
  • No need to repeat the company name in the description.
  • Write in 3rd person plural ("We are the largest…", "We specialise in the distribution…", "We supply…" etc.) except when obviously a sole trader. Err on the side of 3rd person plural.
  • Describe what the company does in the first sentence.
  • Avoid superfluous information (i.e. "We have been established in this region for 30 years", "We employ 30 staff".)
  • Avoid subjective statements. (i.e. "We are the best manufacturers in the business".)
  • Use the .sagenet.co.uk web address rather than their domain name (domain names can take a while to be re-pointed to the webspace). This will also confirm that the customer is using Sage WebTools.
  • Check the description against the actual website to ensure it matches what the company does (only need to briefly check the site – i.e. if the description mentions that they sell boats, check that the website isn’t for a baker – companies and descriptions can get mixed up!)

Website of the Week

  • Use the guidelines above.
  • Rewrite the description to be in the tense of "They are..." etc.
  • Website of the Week descriptions have a character limit of no more than 100 characters including spaces and punctuation.
  • Thumbnails of the website need to be supplied to the development team before sites can be added to Website of the Week
  • Ensure that there is at least one months worth of entries in the Website of the Week database.