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Overview

Like Word or Google Docs, WordPress provides a host of tools to format your content. But unlike word processors, the final output on a website is also controlled by site-wide stylesheets, a set of rules that apply fonts, colors, and layout systematically.

Writing for the web also brings with it the obligation to make content as accessible as possible to a wide range of audiences and the various software tools they might be using. Blind users, for example, navigate web pages with screen readers, and the difference between a heading and a paragraph (or a link and a button) is important.

This makes publishing on the web a bit different: instead of using formatting tools to achieve a specific visual layout, the aim is to structure your content semantically — that is, to mark up your text and media according to their structure or meaning. In short, site editors need to tag each portion of their text as a heading, a list, a paragraph, a link, etc., but the stylesheets take care of the rest.

By leveraging WordPress’s editing tools and the site’s block-based system of components, pages across the site created by different authors stay visually consistent and accessible.

Best Practices

• Avoid bolding links or headings — when you need to make a link or links prominent, use a Button, CTA block, or Callout block.
• Avoid underlining text, since this will make it easily confused with a hyperlink. Links get underlined automatically (and turn red on mouse hover).
• Avoid using “click here” as link text — instead, link the relevant word or phrase.
• Avoid using carriage returns to create ad-hoc spacing.
• Headings on their own create visual groupings of information, so use the Separator block sparingly (once or twice on longer pages is fine, but more than that can be distracting).
• To add emphasis within running text, italics are preferable to bold.
• Avoid centering or right-aligning text.