Swifteq: How to create a knowledge base style guide and why you need one

How to build a knowledge base style guide that keeps voice, tone, terminology, and formatting consistent across your help center.

Think about the last book you really enjoyed.

When you finished reading it and needed to find something new, did you search for other titles by that author?

Most people enjoy the familiarity of reading the same author over and over again. It’s the reason authors like Stephen King are so successful. His readers can focus on the characters and details of the story instead of navigating a new author’s voice every time.

The same thing applies for SaaS companies. Keeping a consistent voice and tone across different mediums builds your brand and creates trust with customers.

It can even contribute to an increase in revenue — a 2021 survey by Marq shows that brand consistency increases revenue, with 32% of respondents claiming a boost of over 20%.

If you only have one or two people writing and managing your knowledge base, keeping consistency of voice is a relatively easy task.

But what do you do when you have a lot of contributors? How do you keep the voice, tone, and style consistent? How do you prevent contradictory information?

Below, I’ll discuss how to build a knowledge base style guide and a few key ways to maintain consistency throughout your help center, even when you have a big team of contributors.

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