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August updates! We reorganized our patterns in August.

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Documentation for content writers

The purpose of the VA.gov content style guide is to help you create better content, not better bureaucracy. If you’re new to our site, we recommend starting with the Overview and Content principles

We’ve also pulled out a few sections below that address common questions. Because this is a living document that will be updated and added to over time, we encourage you to sign up for email updates.

We focus on usage, rather than web policies and governance. If you’re looking for VA web policies, VA Handbook 6102, and other web governance information for all VA digital experiences (including intranet, subdomains, and social media), please visit the VA Web Governance site.

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Content principles

Our content principles guide the voice and tone of everything we write.

Word list

Use our in-house style for common words on VA.gov, so we can use words and labels consistently.

Writing for SEO

See basic SEO tips and best practices for making content findable in searches.

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We’d love to hear from you

We’re constantly working on making the style guide more useful to the people who write, edit, or manage content on VA.gov. Send your feedback to vawebdesign@va.gov with “Content style guide” in the subject line.

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Last updated: Apr 21, 2022