Setting the Tone
Connect with your audience: Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is visiting your site. What would you want to know? What would you find most interesting? Once you’ve determined this, you’ve found your starting point for your content.
Confident: The U is one of the top public universities in the country. As such, our university websites should reflect that. The more confident your tone is in your writing, the more trust your audience has in you.
Upbeat: You should be thrilled about presenting the content on your site. Your passion should come through in the tone of your writing. If you don’t care about what you’re writing about, why would your audience care about reading it?
Write in an Active Voice: You should always be writing in the active voice on your website. In the active voice, the subject is the one performing the action.
Example:
Active Voice: I wrote an article about the benefits of exercise.
Passive voice: An article about the benefits of exercise was written by me.
Be Concise: At this point, we are well into the digital age. People don’t want to waste time digging through details on your site when they’re looking for information. Don’t make your audience do the extra work. The purpose of a website is to give a user quick access to the information they’re looking for.
