Page Comparison

EditorEditors: Jess Zelhart & Ned Faulhaber

Google Docs link: LeadVenture SEO Content Writing Style Guide

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INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT

• VOICE

• TONE

1. TECHNICAL TONES

2. MARKETING TONES

3. CASUAL TONES

• LOCATIONS

1. POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

2. PHYSICAL LOCATIONS VS. TARGET LOCATIONS

APPROVED TERMINOLOGY

GRAMMAR & PUNCTUATION

1. SHARED AMERICAN & CANADIAN ENGLISH CONVENTIONS

2. AMERICAN-ONLY ENGLISH CONVENTIONS

3. CANADIAN-ONLY ENGLISH CONVENTIONS

FORMATTING

1. LEADVENTURE CONTENT FORMATS

2. META DESCRIPTIONS

3. BULLETED TEXT

4. TITLE CAPITALIZATIONS

5. FILE NAMES

6. TRADEMARK USAGE

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INTRODUCTORY STATEMENT

The LeadVenture content writing team is responsible for the creation of engaging, SEO-focused content for LeadVenture dealer websites across all verticals (RV, marine, powersports, motorcycles, agriculture, and so forth). Each dealer that is signed up to receive SEO content will receive one or more pieces each month, discussing topics relevant to that particular dealer’s inventory and geographic location.

Disclaimer: Defer to a dealer’s preferences if they express style choices that do not align with what is outlined here.

VOICE

Always keep in mind that the LeadVenture content teams write for individual clients, and content is published to the clients’ websites. All writers represent these clients in their writing.

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• Do not include more than 4 locations in one comma-separated list.

• Do not include more than 4 OEMs/brands in one comma-separated list.

• If including more than OEMs/brands would be useful to the reader, use a bulleted list.  An example would be a powersports service page with a specific list of OEMs whose vehicles that they provide service for.

TONE

The tone of any given LeadVenture piece will depend on factors such as format, subject matter, product, and audience. 

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Use the following guides for more specific instances when tone will change to fit the situation.

TECHNICAL TONES

Some content will prioritize providing information over everything else. The reader is looking to answer a question or looking for a simple guide. It is ill-advised to focus too heavily on establishing a friendly connection with the reader.

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• Short sentences

• Active voice

• Listicles

• Straightforward explanations

• Minimal contextualization

• Thorough research

• Limited use of unnecessary adjectives and adverbs

MARKETING TONES

Some content will promote a specific manufacturer or brand, and even, to a certain extent, a product. This content should positively describe the object, without putting down related products (unless specifically requested), and provide specific, detailed information about the product when possible.

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• Detailed and engaging descriptions

• Active voice

• Casual, conversational tones

• Enthusiasm that isn’t over-the-top

• Hyper-focused topics

• Engaging the reader with specs and facts

CASUAL TONES

Some content will sell the experience of using the product, rather than the product itself. A friendly and warm tone should be used for these pieces so that they sound like something a friend, neighbor, or family member might recommend.

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• Witty and amusing content that engages the reader

• Active voice

• Listicles

• Casual, conversational tones

• Colloquial language (not prescriptive or authoritative language)

LOCATIONS

The use of locations in LeadVenture content is intended to target readers that live in and around the locations listed. The SEO rep should provide no more than three target locations and three physical locations for a given dealer’s content. 

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• Climate/weather (including common extreme conditions)

• Duration of seasons

• Local events

• Tourist attractions

• Topography (mountainous regions vs. lowlands, etc.)

• Highways and interstates

• Bodies of water

• Regional nicknames

• Local history

POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY

This United States/Canadian Provinces & Territories spreadsheet breaks down all of the North American locations used in LeadVenture content. It includes capitals, postal abbreviations, and regions to assist the writer in correctly targeting their content. 

• Canada is apportioned into ten provinces and three territories. See this chart of provinces and territories of Canada on Wikipedia.

• The United States is split into 50 states.

• There are also five populated territories under U.S. jurisdiction: American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. A few LeadVenture dealers target these territories, so it’s important to recognize the differences.

• States and provinces have their own laws which are not universally applicable to the entire country, although there are certain federal laws that apply across the country. For example, CDL requirements differ from state to state and province to province.

PHYSICAL LOCATIONS VS. TARGET LOCATIONS

When writing LeadVenture content, the writer should endeavor to integrate the target locations as organically as possible, rather than shoehorning the locations into the content. 

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If a target location is the same as the physical location, said location only needs to be stated once.

APPROVED TERMINOLOGY

LeadVenture content uses accurate terminology for each vertical. There are several key terms that we use in our content that would not be found in a layperson’s writing.

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• Commercial Truck: Any large truck used for commercial purposes, usually in the medium-duty or heavy-duty classes. 

• Equipment: May variously refer to heavy equipment, agricultural equipment or construction equipment; machines and their accompanying attachments that are used for heavy-duty work.

• Personal Watercraft: Abbreviated as “PWC,” this is the correct generic term for marine-based motorized crafts that are ridden similarly to a motorcycle. Do not refer to them as “jet skis,” as this is a Kawasaki brand.

• Powersports: The umbrella term for land-based motorized vehicles that are designed primarily (but not exclusively) for off-road riding purposes. This includes utility terrain vehicles (UTVs), all-terrain vehicles (ATVs), motorcycles and dirt bikes (off-road motorcycles).

• RV: An abbreviation for “recreational vehicle;” refers to any self-contained mobile dwelling designed for camping and general travel usage. Options are either towable trailers or motorhomes, which contain their own engine and drivetrain.

• Trailer: A broad term encompassing towable vehicles for hauling cargo, broken down into numerous subcategories. Also colloquially used to refer to towable RVs. 

GRAMMAR & PUNCTUATION

LeadVenture content should adhere to standard American grammatical and spelling conventions, except in the case of Canadian dealers, where Canadian spelling and grammatical conventions should be applied. 

This guide to North American English has more information; American English differs most significantly from British English and this list of comparisons will help a writer who is accustomed to writing in British English to write for Americans.

SHARED AMERICAN & CANADIAN ENGLISH CONVENTIONS

• Use “double” quotation marks when needed, rather than ‘single’ quotation marks.

• Punctuation goes within the quotation marks in most cases.

• When using a parenthetical aside, place punctuation marks outside of the final parenthesis symbol. Example: “Keep your eyes on the road (and not on your cell phone).”

• Instead of using gendered pronouns, use singular “they.” Example: “If you get in touch with a mechanic, they can help you with maintenance issues.”

• Refer to companies as “it” or “they” or “the company” after using their names.

• Use the Oxford comma in serial lists. Example: “Check out our selection of travel trailers, fifth wheels, and pop-up campers.”

• When listing multiple cities in the same state, do not list the state more than once. Example: “We have locations in Seattle, Redmond, and Tacoma, WA.”

• When listing multiple cities in different states, use semicolons after the state names/abbreviations. Example: “Visit our dealership in Omaha, NE, which proudly serves the locations of Lincoln, NE; Council Bluffs, IA; and Kansas City, MO.”

AMERICAN-ONLY ENGLISH CONVENTIONS

Most LeadVenture clients are physically located in and do business within the United States, which means that their content should follow American English conventions. American English has many unique elements to it, particularly because the United States is extremely vast and has several different regions, each of which has its own dialects and terminology. Here are some of the more universal conventions applicable to American English:

• American English does not utilize the “U” spellings of other variants of English. Words like “color,” “favorite,” and “humor” will all be spelled with an “-or” component, rather than “-our.”

• In terms of measurements, American English uses a variant of the 1824 British “imperial” system, which is referred to as United States Customary Units. Lengths are typically measured in inches (5” or 5 inches or 5 in.), feet (10’ or 10 feet or 10 ft.), yards (yd), and miles (mi), rather than centimeters, meters, and kilometers. Americans also describe their own heights in feet and inches (5’2” or 5 foot, 2 inches) rather than in centimeters.

• 1 inch is 2.54 centimeters

• 12 inches (1 foot) is roughly equivalent to 30 centimeters

• 1 yard is 3 feet (and slightly longer than 1 meter)

• 1 mile is 1.6 kilometers

• Volume is measured using the avoirdupois system, rather than the metric system.

• Wet/fluid volumes are measured in fluid ounces, cups, pints, quarts, and gallons, instead of liters.

• Dry volumes are measured in grains, drams, ounces, pounds, and tons.

• When writing about temperatures for American clients, always use the Fahrenheit (°F) scale, as opposed to the Celsius (°C) scale used in most of the rest of the world.

• 32°F (the freezing point of water) is equivalent to 0°C

• 212°F (the boiling point of water) is equivalent to 100°C

• This Fahrenheit-to-Celsius conversion tool will help you to apply the correct temperatures for discussing typical winter and summer averages.

• Standard conjunctions in American English don’t include “here’re,” “who’re,” “you’ll not” or “you’ve to.” Avoid “shan’t” as it’s both archaic and more British.

• American English uses “Z” instead of “S” spellings (“realize”), except in a few cases (“advertise”).

CANADIAN-ONLY ENGLISH CONVENTIONS

LeadVenture has many dealers based in Canada, so it’s important to tailor our content specifically to Canadian readers by endeavoring to make use of Canadian English conventions wherever possible.

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• When adding “-ed” or “-er” to a word, Canadian English doubles the consonant: “travel” becomes “travelled” or “traveller.”

• Canada uses “U” spellings for words like “colour” and “favourite.”

• The metric system is predominantly used in Canada for most measurements, with some exceptions: the Wikipedia article on metrication in Canada has more information.

• Words ending in “-er” are spelled “-re” in Canadian English: kilometre, theatre, etc.

FORMATTING 

CONTENT TYPES

Different client packages receive different content types as part of their deliverables each month. The complete list of content types can be found on Confluence.

HEADERS

All content pieces utilize headers. What type of header (H1, H2, H3) is given in the descriptions of the content types on Confluence. 

The complete explanation of header best practices, plus templates and examples for every type of site page, can be found in the On-Site Optimization Best Practices document.

TITLE TAGS

All blog articles, local pages, and ARI Essentials/Custom page content must include a title tag. 

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The complete explanation of title tags best practices, plus templates and examples for any type of site page, can be found in the On-Site Optimization Best Practices document. 

META DESCRIPTIONS

All Dealer Spike articles and ARI articles and Essentials content must include a meta description. 

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The complete explanation of meta description best practices, plus templates and examples for every type of site page, can be found in the On-Site Optimization Best Practices document.

BULLETED TEXT

When writing bulleted text: 

• Capitalize the first letter of each bulleted word, phrase, or sentence (unless the first word is case-sensitive, like the RV brand “nuCamp”).

• Use periods at the end of sentences, long phrases, or paragraphs.

• Don’t use periods after one- to three-word phrases.

• If some bullets are sentences and some are phrases or single words, rewrite them to be consistent.

TITLE CAPITALIZATIONS (TITLE CASE)

When formatting titles for any type of piece, it’s important to use standard English “title case” capitalization rules. This tool for title capitalization can help the writer to correctly format a given title. There are a few exceptions to this: one example would be the phrase “For Sale,” where both “for” and “sale” should be capitalized.

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FILE NAMES

All LeadVenture content is organized in Google Drive. Each dealer has their own folder within alphabetized folders. The file names of each document are standardized in order to keep dealers’ content organized, starting with the dealer’s name in all cases. Check out this guide to creating file names to learn more about this system.

TRADEMARK USAGE

All LeadVenture writers are required to apply the appropriate trademark and copyright symbols to branded names. Review and reference the Trademark Guide for more information. Some common guidelines include:

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If you have feedback regarding the style guide, please fill out this survey for the Content Team to review.

APPENDIX

Documents and other resources linked throughout the style guide:

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