The Importance of a Style Guide in Blogging

Written By Bonny Isselt.

Time To Read:

6–9 minutes

May 29, 2025

Category: Blog

A style guide checklist serves as a helpful tool for guest bloggers to understand the specific writing and formatting requirements before submitting their content. Guest blogging is a valuable opportunity for writers to reach new audiences and establish themselves as experts in their field. However, guest bloggers need to adhere to the style guide provided by the host website to ensure consistency and quality.

The style guide checklist for guest bloggers typically includes guidelines for tone, voice, word count, formatting, and the use of images or links. By following these guidelines, guest bloggers can ensure that their content aligns with the host website’s brand and resonates with its audience. Understanding and adhering to the style guide enhances the guest blogger’s credibility and contributes to a positive experience for the host website and its readers.

With our guide, you’ll feel confident and empowered to create engaging guest posts that captivate our audience.

Let us help you unleash your creativity!

Overview

In this blog post, guest bloggers get tips on how to structure content for SEO.
Also, check if guest blog sites have style guides, and what you can do or need to practice.
Besides that, you get practical tips on where to begin.

Table of contents

What is a style guide?

A style guide is a document that outlines the rules and guidelines for creating and presenting content. It provides a standard for how content should be used, which helps to ensure consistency across the board.

A style guide can help you create a flexible standard for how content should be used, which can be especially helpful if you have a large team of writers or contributors.

It can also provide consistency and a clearly defined brand presence in all your marketing materials.

Tip 1: Featured image placing

When you start your guest post you should place the featured image above your content. The reason is that it makes the content relatable to the audience. This is beneficial for the reader and makes your content easier to skim.

The correct blog banner size is 2240 px x 1200 px you can use Canva standard size to create a featured image.

Name the Canva file the same as your H1 title. After you download your Canva design head over to an image compressor to reduce the file size without losing quality.

Reduce file size sites

TinyPNG
ShortPixel

Tip 2: The tone and hook of the intro

Tone: The tone should be engaging, positive, welcoming, and helpful. Please do not make your text hard to read or use complex words to explain something simple.

Check grammar to avoid typos; use Grammarly or another spellchecker. The intro should have a hook.

Here are some examples of good hooks that you can use to grab your reader’s attention:

Start with a question: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to travel to the moon?
Use a fact or statistic: Did you know that over 1 million plastic bottles are sold every minute around the world?
Include a quote: As Albert Einstein once said ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge.
Tell an anecdote: When I was a child, my grandmother used to tell me stories about her life growing up in rural China.
Use a description: The sun was setting over the horizon, casting a warm glow over the city skyline.

Remember, the goal of a hook is to grab the reader’s attention and make them want to read more. Keep it short, simple, and to the point. Good luck with your writing!

Tip 3: Style your content, headings, and subheadings

When you want to cover a topic with various steps and instructions, then use bullet points or a number list. Use headings and subheadings to organize your content and to keep readers engaged with your content.

Here is an example of a bullet point and a numbered list.

Instruction 1 {bullet point list}
Instruction 2 {bullet point list}
Instruction 3 {bullet point list}

Step {of a numbered list}
Step {of a numbered list}
Step {of a numbered list}

We use the H1, H2, and H3 these are the best practices of using headings and subheadings to structure topics according to their important section:

Call-To-Actions

To ensure consistency and brand recognition, call-to-actions need to use the same colors as the brand they represent.

Write site names in your sentences naturally to maintain readability.

Don’t use this to refer to:

Go here https://sitename12345610/wp-blog/post-date/22-11-2023/.com

Use this to refer to:

Breakdown your text with this template

Include 1 link from our or any other site.

Paragraph

A paragraph is where you write content. Our rule is to keep it simple and impactful and create a clear overview & keep your sentence short consisting of 3-5 lines.

This is what you must do.

Title: Grow in E-commerce

1.Research and plan: 
Conduct market research to identify your target audience and competition. Develop a business plan outlining your goals and strategies.

2.Set up online store: 
Choose an e-commerce platform, and build a user-friendly website with secure payment options.

3.Product selection and marketing: 
Select high-demand products, and implement effective marketing strategies to drive traffic and increase sales.

Tip 4: The right format and typography

Using the correct format can save time when aligning our blog’s style with your content. Typography is how we show content to our audience by knowing how to write your draft in which font size can help you.

Our font size = 22 px

When to use bold or italic

We use bold to emphasize essential benefits, steps, instructions, or options. We use italics inside a paragraph to show examples. Do not forget that you can combine them when you need to do so.

Editing, titles, and proofread

Editing is where you are almost done with your draft you must place relatable images such as statistics, trends, graphs, Infographics, videos, and a featured image. Writing alt text and your story as a whole.

What we do not like:

Imagery, tiles, or other media outlets that do not reflect what your article is about.

The topic lacks research and relies on filler words to increase the word count.

Titles

Titles should clearly communicate the main topic and purpose of the blog post. The best titles do this in a fun and captivating way.

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Proofread

Before you submit your article to the website owner for publication, make sure to read through your piece carefully and check for typos. Use Grammarly to check for grammar and spelling errors.

Tip 5: Structure an SEO Guest Blog

If you want to write an SEO article, you should consider that keywords must appear in your H1 title and H2 title, your alt text, and at the beginning of your text, in the introduction.

First, note down your keyword like this: The keyword for this guest blog is: your keyword.

A blogger on WordPress must have some SEO skills, and you should ask if they have an SEO plugin such as Yoast SEO or Rank Math SEO.

The content should always be organized clearly and logically. By following a structured approach, readers can easily grasp the information being presented. When data is formatted in a consistent and orderly way, it enhances the overall readability of the content.

It’s important to maintain a balance between providing detailed information and ensuring that the content remains easily understandable. This structured approach not only benefits the readers but also reflects positively on the credibility and professionalism of the writer. Therefore, structuring content data is an essential aspect of effective communication and information delivery.

The structure of the content SEO guest post data is like this.
Title. Imagery. Introduction. Overview. Table of contents. H2 Topic name. H3 Topic name details include stats. H2 Topic name. H3 Topic name details include stats. Infographic. Conclusion or summary. Your bio.

Conclusion

It’s absolutely crucial to delve into the various facets involved in creating an outstanding guest blog. From mastering SEO guidelines, and embed graphics to ensuring a seamless flow and solid structure, the task may seem daunting. But fear not – there’s incredibly valuable assistance available through style guides to help you deliver a high-caliber guest blog.

The key points of a style guide are: