Tone of voice

Tone of voice isn’t what we say but how we say it. It’s the language we use, the way we write phrases, the sound of our words and the personality we communicate.

Developing and organising

When developing and organising a website, the order of content on the page and on the entire site can help inform both tone and presentation:

  • Home page and landing pages should contain brief text, headlines, and a lot of graphics and images.
  • Think of the homepage and the landing pages as the user walking into Caerphilly Council reception and getting a feel for the place. This could be their first impression of the Caerphilly Council.
  • Subpages can and often need to go into more detail.

Helpful tips

  • Think before you start writing. Make a note of the points you want to make in a logical order.
  • Use the first person to talk to your audience. For example: Instead of 'Caerphilly Council runs a series of events in December for residents' USE: 'We invite you to one of our events in December.'
  • Use simple and short words rather than formal and long words. For example, use ‘buy’ instead of ‘purchase’, ‘help’ instead of ‘assist’ and ‘about’ instead of ‘approximately’.
  • Avoid jargon, abbreviations and acronyms which are unfamiliar to your readers. Use plain language to make sure people can understand what you are trying to communicate.
  • Use short phrases. Keep your phrases to an average of 15 to 20 words. Apply one idea per sentence.
  • Be brief
  • Write informally. We should use the same language as our users to make things easy for anyone to read and understand. A good way to do this is to follow this process:
    • Think of someone you know who is in your target audience
    • Imagine them sitting with you
    • Read out what you’re writing to them
    • Decide whether you would talk to them like this.

Choose simple words

Follow writing for GOV.UK and aim for a reading age of 9 so our content can be understood by as many people as possible. You can check how readable your content is, by using Hemingway or Readable.

Address the user as ‘you’ and use the active voice

Address the user as ‘you’ where possible and use the active rather than passive voice. This means the user will feel like you’re talking directly to them and is less formal.

For example, say ‘You can apply online via our portal’ rather than 'Residents can apply online via Caerphilly Council portal’.

Use Active Voice and avoid using Passive Voice for example:

AVOID

Food waste caddies are issued free of charge.

All secondary learners that are eligible for transport are provided with bus passes.

The cat was chased by the dog.

WRITE:

Food waste caddies are free of charge.

We provide bus passes to all secondary learners that are eligible for transport.

The dog chased the cat.

Useful Links: