Why your style guide should come from your edits
Most small companies have a style guide, even if nobody has written it down. It lives in the founder's head and shows up as the same edits in every review. They change "users" to "customers." They cut the exclamation marks. They delete the opening question on every blog post and rewrite it as a plain statement. Every writer who works with them learns these rules one red mark at a time, and every new writer starts over.
Writing the guide down fixes that, but the usual approach doesn't work well. If you sit down with a blank page and try to describe your voice, you get adjectives like "clear," "confident," and "human." Those words are true of almost every brand, so they don't tell a writer what to do differently. The rules that actually save review time are specific: which words you never use, how you describe competitors, how long a subject line can run, and whether you write "e-mail" or "email."
The best source for those rules is the record of what's already been approved and rejected. Put a draft next to the version that shipped, and the founder's preferences are right there in the differences. Read a few dozen of those pairs and the patterns become obvious. That reading is tedious for a person and well suited to an AI agent, which can compare every pair, count which changes repeat, and quote the examples.
Kite is an AI marketer. It researches your business, builds a growth strategy, and ships the work that brings you new customers. Here's how it turns your past edits into a style guide that every later draft follows.
How Kite writes your editorial style guide
Kite builds the guide the way a careful editor would. It gathers what has already been approved and rejected, looks for the changes that repeat, and writes each one as a rule with the example that proves it. Then it saves those rules where every piece of writing starts, so the guide shapes the next draft instead of sitting in a folder.
Kite doesn't start from a blank page. During onboarding, it reads your website and records your brand voice in your team's knowledge base: how your brand sounds, the traits that describe it, the few things it says about itself, and the words and phrases it avoids. Any standing preferences people on your team have already stated are recorded there too. The style guide builds on that foundation with the evidence from your own reviews.
- Gather what the founder has already approved and rejected
- Separate standing rules from one-off calls
- Write each rule with an example and a reason
- Put the guide where every draft starts
- How do I stop making the same copy edits in every review?
Gather what the founder has already approved and rejected
The first step in writing a style guide is collecting the evidence of what the founder actually changes. Kite reads three kinds of material for this, and it's useful to give it as much of each as you have.
- Drafts with their final versions. A first draft next to the published version shows every edit the founder made. Blog posts, landing pages, emails, and LinkedIn posts all count.
- Feedback written in words. Review comments, Slack threads where the founder explained a change, and notes like "never call it a platform" carry the reasons behind the edits.
- Work the founder praised or rejected outright. A post they called exactly right is a sample of the voice. A draft they threw out tells Kite what to steer away from.
You can share files with Kite directly in the Kite web app or in Slack. If your drafts and their final versions live in Google Docs or Google Drive, connect your account and tell Kite which folder to read. In Slack, Kite can also search the public channels it has joined for earlier conversations, so you can ask it to find the feedback the founder gave on last quarter's blog drafts.
Kite also reads what you've already published. Your live website, blog, and social posts are the approved end of every review, so they show the voice the founder signed off on even when the drafts are gone.
Separate standing rules from one-off calls
A style guide should hold the edits the founder makes every time, not every edit they ever made. Some changes are rules: the founder replaces "solution" with the product's name in every draft, across every kind of content. Other changes are judgment calls about one piece: they cut a paragraph because that post ran long, not because they dislike paragraphs.
Kite sorts the changes by how often they recur and how widely they apply. A change that shows up across many drafts and several kinds of content is a brand-wide rule. A change that only appears in emails, or only in LinkedIn posts, is a rule for that kind of content. A change that appears once stays out of the guide unless the founder's comment says it should hold from now on. When the founder wrote "always" or "never," Kite treats that as a rule the first time.
Kite also notices when the evidence disagrees with itself. If the founder cut "we're excited to announce" from one launch post and kept it in another, Kite doesn't guess. It lists the conflict and asks which version should stand.
Write each rule with an example and a reason
A good style-guide rule tells a writer what to do, shows what it looks like, and explains why. Kite writes every rule that way, in a plain sentence a freelancer could follow on their first day.
Here's what one rule might look like:
Call the people who pay us "customers," not "users." Before: "Our users save four hours a week." After: "Our customers save four hours a week." Why: the founder made this change in nearly every draft we reviewed, and it matches how the sales team talks about the people who buy from us.
Kite groups the rules the way writers look things up. Voice and tone come first, followed by the words you use and avoid, how you refer to your company, products, and competitors, and the mechanics, such as capitalization in headings, numbers, and dates. Rules for specific kinds of content, such as blog posts, emails, ads, and social posts, get their own sections. Each rule keeps a link back to the draft or comment it came from, so anyone who questions a rule can see where it started.
If the founder publishes under their own name, Kite can also write a voice profile for them from samples of their writing. Posts and emails that go out under their name then read the way they write, while company content follows the brand's voice. If you sell to very different audiences, Kite can keep separate voice rules for each one, such as a more formal voice for enterprise buyers and a casual one on social.
You review the draft guide before anything is saved as a rule. Change the wording, delete a rule you don't agree with, or tell Kite which side of a conflict wins.
Put the guide where every draft starts
A style guide only saves review time if writers read it before they write, so Kite saves each approved rule where it applies. Rules about how your brand sounds everywhere, including the words it never uses, go on the brand voice page of your team's knowledge base. Rules about one kind of content, such as "LinkedIn posts carry no emojis," go on a page for that kind of content. A named person's voice profile is kept with their name.
Every part of Kite reads these pages before it writes. When Kite drafts a blog post, an ad, or an outbound email, it works from your rules and your approved samples, not from a summary someone typed into the request. That's what shortens your reviews. The edits you used to make by hand are already in the draft.
The knowledge base is also yours to edit. You can open any page in the Kite web app and change it directly. When your team edits a page, Kite treats your wording as the final word and doesn't overwrite it with its own research.
Your human writers can use the same guide. Ask Kite for a copy as a Google Doc, a file, or a report page with a shareable link, and send it to your freelancers, agency, or new hires.
How do I stop making the same copy edits in every review?
You stop making the same edits by writing each one down the first time it repeats and making sure every writer reads it before drafting. Kite handles the writing-down part as you work. When you correct a draft Kite wrote, it records the correction as a proposed rule. Every night, Kite reviews the day's conversations, and once that review confirms a proposed rule, the rule guides later work for your whole team, for one client, or for one kind of content.
Here's an example. Say Kite drafts a launch email that opens with "We're thrilled to share," and you reply that you never open with how excited you are. Kite records that as a proposed rule for launch emails. After the nightly review confirms it, the next launch email opens with the news itself, and so does the one after that. Praise works the same way. When you tell Kite a draft is exactly your voice, it can keep that draft as a sample of what good looks like.
When a new rule conflicts with one already on record, Kite doesn't quietly replace the old one. It asks which should stand and records the answer. This is how the guide stays current. It grows from the edits you're still making, so it never turns into a document that describes how the company wrote two years ago.
What you get
A written editorial style guide
It covers voice and tone, words to use and avoid, how to describe your company, products, and competitors, mechanics such as capitalization and numbers, and separate rules for each kind of content you publish.
An example and a reason for every rule
Each rule shows a before-and-after taken from your own drafts and links back to the edit or comment it came from.
A list of open conflicts
Where the founder's past edits disagree, Kite lists both versions so you can decide which one stands.
Rules that Kite follows in its own drafts
Approved rules are saved in your team's knowledge base, which Kite reads before every piece of writing.
A shareable copy for human writers
Get the guide as a Google Doc, a file, or a report page with a link to send to freelancers, agencies, and new hires.
A guide that keeps growing
Your corrections to Kite's later work become proposed rules, and the nightly review adds the confirmed ones.
How to get started
Start by telling Kite what you want in plain language. You might say, "Write a style guide from the edits I keep making on our blog posts," or "Figure out what the founder always changes in our emails and write it down as rules."
Then point Kite to the evidence. Share a set of drafts along with their final versions, plus any review comments or Slack threads where the founder explained their edits. If those files live in Google Docs or Google Drive, connect your account and name the folder. Kite also reads your published website and posts on its own.
Kite comes back with a draft guide, its examples, and a list of any conflicts it found. Review it, edit or delete the rules you don't want, and settle the conflicts. Once you approve the guide, Kite saves the rules where its own writing will follow them and gives you a copy to share with anyone else who writes for you.
Integrations used to write an editorial style guide
Kite builds the guide mostly from files you share and the work you've already published. These integrations make it easier to hand over the history of your reviews and to share the finished guide.
Find past feedback and talk through the rules
Read past drafts and share the finished guide
Kite reads the drafts and final versions your team keeps in Google Docs and can write the finished style guide as a Google Doc your team can edit and comment on.
Point Kite to the Drive folder where your drafts, brand guide, and past content live, and it finds and reads the files there.
Common questions
What should a marketing style guide include?
A marketing style guide should cover the decisions writers would otherwise have to guess at or learn by being corrected. The sections that earn their place are usually these:
- Voice and tone. How the brand sounds, shown with real examples, and how the tone shifts between channels or audiences.
- Words to use and avoid. Your preferred terms, the words you never use, and how to name your products and features.
- How to describe people and companies. What you call your customers, and how you talk about competitors.
- Mechanics. Capitalization in headings, spelling choices, how to write numbers and dates, and punctuation preferences.
- Rules for each kind of content. What a blog post, email, ad, or social post should include, how long it runs, and how it opens and closes.
Visual rules for colors, fonts, and logos usually live in a separate brand guide. If you want examples of how other companies describe their voice, our guide to brand voice examples and how to keep every writer on-brand Coming soon collects them.
How much past work does Kite need to write a useful guide?
Enough to show the patterns. A few weeks of drafts with their final versions usually reveals the edits the founder makes most often, and those are the rules that save the most review time. If you have very little history, Kite can start from your published content and the brand voice it recorded during onboarding, then add rules as you review its first drafts.
Can I just ask a chatbot to write a style guide for my company?
You can, and you'll get a reasonable template. A general chatbot writes from what style guides usually contain, so the result describes a typical brand rather than yours. The rules that cut review time come from your own edits, and finding them means reading your drafts, final versions, and feedback side by side. Kite does that reading, keeps the evidence for each rule, and then follows the rules in the work it writes for you.
What happens when the founder's preferences change?
Tell Kite, or simply correct the next draft. Kite records the new preference, and if it conflicts with a rule already in the guide, Kite asks which one stands instead of keeping both. The guide then reflects how the founder wants things written now, and you can ask Kite for an updated shareable copy whenever your writers need one.
Can Kite keep different style rules for different clients?
Yes. Each Kite team has its own knowledge base, so an agency can run a separate team for each client, each with its own style guide, voice samples, and rules. One person can belong to several teams and switch between them. For more on how Kite learns a company's voice, preferences, and context, see Teach an AI agent about your company.