A content management strategy is a plan, a style guide, and a quick reference all in one place. It helps keep your communications consistent and on-brand. Below is a sample from our own help center content management strategy at Tettra.

What we do, what we don't do

• We don't document other tools, only our own. (So we'll explain our API, but we won't teach you how to use Zapier. Instead we'll link to their own help articles where necessary.)
• We never share our customers' information in our screenshots - all examples are from our own demo space.

Voice & Tone

• Use a conversational, human, warm and helpful tone, like you’re talking to your best friend over lunch.
• Avoid using big words that people might not understand:
  • e.g. Use the word “use” instead of “utilize”
• Avoid passive voice ("Jen wrote the pages" instead of "The pages were written by Jen.")
• In support articles, avoid jokes and memes - most people want to get their answer quickly and we have other places where we can engage with our delightful personalities. 😀

Style and Grammar Notes

• Aim for a 7th/8th-grade reading level (measured by Grammarly)  as it’s the most inclusive and understandable reading level for the internet layperson who’s trying to get answers to their questions quickly. 
  • Resources: 
    • The Plain Language Action and Information Network’s Simple Words and phrases
    • Deanna Horton’s Handy list of human words
• If a sentence could be split into two sentences, do it. Shorter sentences are easier for reader comprehension. Run-on sentences are confusing.
• Begin every article with a tl;dr sentence: tell them what the answer is up front, concisely, then go into detail.

Some more guidelines (in table format):

General Rule	Example
Use the Oxford comma.	"View item 1, item 2, and item 3."
Speak in the second person.	“you,” not “I, me, or they”
When using a standard abbreviation make sure to define it the first time you use it in content.	"A call to action (CTA) is needed when .... You do not need a CTA when ...."
Don't break up your sentence's flow unnecessarily.	Don’t write this: “There are plugins, for example, that can help.” Write this instead: “For example, there are plugins that can help.”

Paragraphs

• Write short paragraphs.
• Focus on one idea/topic per paragraph.
• Use transition words to connect paragraphs.
• Use headings for longer documents, because they automatically create a table of contents for easy linking.

Links

• The text you link to should be descriptive of what you're linking to. Try to avoid linking to “click here” anchor text. Instead, link copy that incorporates the name of the website or the specific page you're linking to.
• Avoid linking more than five words together (and aim for fewer). Search engines see this as spammy, and it also hurts readability.
• Don’t hyperlink punctuation (like quotation marks, commas, and question marks). In general, don’t do lazy link formatting that extends past relevant anchor text, including blank spaces.
• Add external links to define concepts that are obscure but not relevant enough to expand on in the article.
• Always add relevant articles to the bottom of the help article, in a separate section.

Related:

• How to insert, exit, and delete a callout box
• How to create a table in the Tettra page editor