Check your page to these standards to ensure it’s ready for a web audience.

Writing for the Web

1. Make paragraphs 1 to 5 sentences long. Include only 1 idea per paragraph.
2. Put the main idea and key words and phrases in the first sentence of paragraphs.
3. Write short sentences. Aim for 7 to 10 words in 1 sentence.
4. Write sentences We found the car, not The car was found by us.
5. Avoid self-promotion: cut out describing words like beautiful and wonderful.

Keywords and Teasers

1. Create 6 primary and 6 secondary key words and key phrases for each page.
2. Enter your primary keywords into titles and links, and ensure secondary keywords are in sub-headings and body content. Content contains maximum 5% keywords.
3. Make teasers a maximum of 140 characters, with 2 to 3 keywords in the first half.
4. Give 1 action and 1 to 2 details in teasers. Use short, strong commands.
5. Cut out politeness, a, an, the, or flowery and descriptive words. Be succinct.

Titles

1. Summarize the page content in a descriptive page title. No instructions.
2. Use plain language and avoid acronyms. All users must understand titles.
3. Create titles that are 2 to 5 words and less than 50 characters.
4. Put 2 primary keywords in the first half of page titles.
5. Use ampersands (&) and commas (,) and cut out in, for, a and the. Be concise.

Sub-headings

1. Summarize 3 or more related paragraphs with descriptive sub-headings (H2).
2. Add nested headings (H3) to further divide content between sub-heading sections.
3. Create sub-headings which are 3 to 7 words long, or approximately 50 characters.
4. Put at least 2 unique, secondary keywords in the first half of sub-headings.
5. Make sub-headings on a page similar in length, sentence structure and word form.

Lists and Tables

1. Pull 3 to 7 related items out of your content and group them into a bulleted list.
2. Use short phrases or sentences in lists — aim for 2 to 4 words in a list item.
3. Keep point items the same length, and use similar sentence and word form.
4. Create a numbered list only for a ranking, priorities or instructions.
5. Use tables only for a list of text along a list of numbers. Include title and column headings for all tables.

Links and Attachments

1. Make links specific, descriptive and between 2 and 5 words long.
2. Put primary or secondary key words or phrases in the first half of links.
3. Include maximum 2 links per paragraph and approximately 10 links per page.
4. Link to external pages that are related to your content. Also tell the user it’s an outside website and that the page will open in a new window.
5. Use PDFs only when users expect it. Also tell the user it’s a PDF, notify them of the size if it’s over 10MB and let them know the page will open in a new window.

Text Style

1. Make text size 12, Universe Roman in black (<p> Styles in CMS). No coloured text.
2. Don’t use all capital letters to make text stand out. Choose bold instead.
3. Use bold text to highlight important text or key phrases. Avoid italics entirely.
4. Make 2 or 3 important words or phrases bold, not entire sentences or 1 word.
5. Only use underline for links.

Images

1. Ensure feature content images are 976px x 401px and events images 350px x 296px.
2. Choose images that enhance page content but don’t contain text.
3. Ensure multiple images on a page are aligned and are of a similar size.
4. Use good quality pictures, with people in action. No clip art or stock photos.
5. Add alternative text for all images. Also add descriptions and/or captions for graphs, diagrams, and images in a photo gallery.

Accessibility

1. Create alternative (alt) text for all images. Don’t put text in an image.
2. Use sub-headings throughout text to organize it for users with reading challenges.
3. Write in plain language. Check that a 14-year-old student can understand content.
4. Avoid PDFs. Edit content for the web instead, and put it on a web page.
5. Use tables for text alongside a list of numbers. Don’t use tables for layout.

City of Surrey Writing Voice

1. Use the City of Surrey to stand for the City Council, city governments or the government and its residents as a whole (eg, Welcome to the City of Surrey.) Use City of Surrey or City to describe a person/place/thing (eg, City employees). Use the City to stand for Surrey as a city/location (eg, The key economic documents show the economic development in the City.) Choose we instead of the City or the City of Surrey to avoid repetition, and to shorten sentences.
2. Use we, you and our instead of the residents or employees.
3. Use short, powerful sentences and avoid overused, complicated phrases (eg, such as, is responsible for and is intended to).
4. Use the position name and the facility name first mention, but continue with this person and our facility throughout the remainder of the paragraph.
5. Use strong verbs to avoid unnecessary words. Avoid can, may, might, and could.

Capitalization

1. Capitalize the first letter of every word in page titles, but only capitalize the first letter of the first word in sub-headings.
2. Use lowercase for and, but, to, for, from, in, a and the in all situations.
3. Capitalize complete names of departments, committees, sections and divisions, but use lowercase for partial and plural names (eg, The Diversity and Inclusion Committee but The committee and the committees).
4. Capitalize complete position titles and names of places, but use lowercase for partial and plural position titles and places (eg, The General Manager but the manager and managers).
5. Capitalize the first letter of full sentences, names, physical objects or places within a bulleted or numbered list. Use lowercase in all other list situations.

Spelling and Grammar

1. Follow Canadian spelling, and always hit the spellcheck button in the CMS.
2. Check the Accepted Spelling, Alphabetical List of commonly misspelled words.
3. Put words that aren’t English, or are not common, in italics and explain their meaning (eg, Birding, commonly known as bird watching, is popular in Surrey.)
4. Follow Canadian grammar (eg, The team is, not The team are). Find grammar guidance in The Canadian Style, with the web-based version at termium.com.

Punctuation

1. Write shorter sentences that don’t require punctuation. Try to avoid commas (,), and steer clear of semi-colons (;) and exclamation marks (!).
2. Include 1 space after periods (.), colons (:), question marks (?) and commas (,).
3. Use brackets only to introduce an acronym [eg, (LDED)]. Instead, enter an em dash (—) or colon (:) to bring focus onto a part of the text.
4. Use apostrophes (‘) to show possession, not to make plurals (eg, DVDs not DVD’s).
5. Insert a hyphen (-) in a 2-part describing word before a person/place/thing, but not afterwards (eg, At-risk youth but youth who are at risk). No hyphen in bylaws.

Abbreviation

1. Put an acronym in brackets after the first mention [eg, The Teen Advisory Group (TAG)]. No periods in between letters.
2. Introduce and use an acronym of a long department, program or policy name when mentioning the name more than 3 times on a page.
3. Use a maximum of 2 acronyms in a paragraph.
4. Abbreviate dates, months and measurements in tables (eg, Apr. 2, 2011 or 35 mm) but spell out in full inside sentences (eg, on April 2, 2001 or 35 millimetres).
5. Assume users understand the meaning of common acronyms (eg, CDs, DVDs).

Dates and Times

1. Show dates as Thursday, August 3, 2011, (or) August 3, 2011, (or) August 2011.
2. Spell out days and months in a sentence (eg, Tuesday, January) but use abbreviations (eg, Tues., Jan.) in a table.
3. Use periods and lowercase in a.m. and p.m. Use 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.
4. Show date and time ranges as August 24 to 26, 2011, and 2 to 4 p.m. in a sentence, but use abbreviations Aug 24 – 26, 2011, and 2 – 4 p.m. in a table.
5. Avoid repetition of time measurements (eg, 10:30 to 11:00 a.m. and November 25 to 27, 2011, not 10:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. and November 25, 2011, to November 27, 2011).

Contact Information

1. Give contact information on child pages when applicable, and on all events pages. Provide contact position title, eMail and phone number at the bottom of the page.
2. Present phone numbers Tel: 555-555-5555 and eMail   eMail: me@surrey.ca
3. Follow the order: name (if using), title, organization, room or suite or floor, building, street address, city, province, postal code, country (if the address is for an international audience), phone number and eMail. No periods in BC (BC not B.C.)
4. Show addresses separate from sentences, and separate building and street addresses with an en dash (–) (eg, 14245 – 56^th Avenue).
5. Do not italicize or embolden contact information.

Numerical Items and Money

1. Use figures inside a text (including 1 to 9) but spell out a number if it’s at the beginning of a sentence.
2. Use commas for numbers longer than 6 digits. (eg, 5000 but 500,000)
3. Show money to the cents value. (eg, $100.00 not $100)
4. Spell out million (eg, $1 million not $1,000,000)
5. Show all values in Canadian dollars, but don’t say CAD.