BRAND GUIDELINES

It’s not a clever line on a billboard. It’s not a sassy tweet. It’s the way we make our customers feel. Voice, tone, style—all this stuff creates consistency. Which words we use, where we use them, and how we say them matter to people, so it should matter to us.  

Consistency builds familiarity, which builds trust, which leads to brand love. This guide is here to help us build that familiarity, trust, and love*. 
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*Yes, love. The warm, snuggly, comforting type.

We’re just trying to make life a little bit better, one incredible taco or extremely prompt locksmith at a time. So we always look on the bright side, and don’t take ourselves too seriously.

Copy has the right level of lightness
We try to make life a little better by bringing some joy to our words
We’re never intense, heavy, or moody

✓ We are: Bright, Upbeat, Optimistic
‍X We aren’t: Nonchalant, Uncaring, Distracting/Unfocused

Life is too short to settle for boring, so we actively seek out and celebrate the unboring. Unboring isn’t even a real word by the way, but we chose it to show that it’s ok to break the rules sometimes.

We don’t sound like a robot or a textbook
We take opportunities to be clever, creative, and refreshing
We add moments of delight with our words

✓ We are: Unconventional, Creative, Joyful
‍X We aren’t: Sarcastic, Mean, Over the top

Nothing makes us happier than making people feel welcomed and included, so we use simple language that’s easy for everyone to understand.

We are always easy to understand
We use simple language that is not overly-thought about
We choose words that you would use naturally in a relaxed conversation

✓ We are: Warm, Welcoming, Approachable
‍X We aren’t: Chatty, Fake, Try-hard, Confusing

Remember that note about empathy? Read it again, because we need lots of empathy to figure out tone. Our voice is always Yelp, but our tone adjusts depending on who we’re talking to and what the situation is. 
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We exist so people can be enthusiastic about their favorite burrito or the store that sells good socks. So yes, we should be enthusiastic too. 
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But we also exist to help multi-loc execs streamline their operations. And we also exist to help local businesses—who are generally busy and stressed—find new customers. And we also exist so people can hire a good plumber when their sink explodes. 
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So respect the audience’s state of mind when talking to them. We’re here to make things feel better, not worse.

What do emojis, exclamation points, and em dashes have in common? They’re all style choices, and they all tell you something about the person who uses them (or doesn’t use them).

Style matters. It shows personality, indicates tone, and adds consistency. Read on for our top style tips.

For a deeper dive, see our Style Guide.

We use sentence case for everything—headlines and supporting copy. This is a deliberate choice to meet our principle of “be human”. (Title case is harder to read, gives a sense of gravitas, and is harder for anyone to execute.) 
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This guideline goes across marketing and product. The only exception is content and performance marketing, where title case serves an SEO function.

We use the Oxford—or serial—comma, always. This means no matter what, we’ll never be confusing, which ladders up to our “be clear” principle of voice. This goes for all channels.

Clichés have been repeated millions of times. Why would we copy someone else’s ideas when we can just be ourselves? Also, clichés can be confusing. Let’s not make people think more than they have to.

We’re not saying they’re totally banned, but…. When puns are executed poorly or heavily, writing can become stale and predictable, much like clichés. Puns also feel written, which can go against our “be human” principle. They can also be hard work for the audience—if a play on words has multiple meanings, that means the reader has to unpack it many times. So good puns in the right context are OK, but make sure they work. Here’s some advice:
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• Don’t overuse them
• Don’t force them
• Don’t make them confusing
• Do consider adding tongue-in-cheek self awareness
     • e.g. Seafood? Eat it. (Get it? OK we’ll stop.)

This should go without saying: racism, bigotry, sexism, misogyny, and prejudice of any kind have no place at Yelp. Everything we say should be inclusive. (For more on inclusivity, see pronouns.)

We are humans, but we’re classy ones. At least, when we’re at our day jobs. “Damn” is fine, but anything stronger is not! When writing as Yelp, keep it PG. That goes for stand-in words too, like “motherclucker.”

Like we said, we’re classy. Sex jokes might be amusing to some people, but they’re just not our style. We don’t need sex to be cool or funny. Same goes for drugs.

Yelp is for everyone, and everyone doesn’t “get” slang. So, we don’t use it. While fad words like YOLO and swag go out of style, Yelp stays classic.

Yelp stands alone! As well as cannibalizing our brand, merging “Yelp” into other words can be confusing. It isn’t a very human way to work the brand into copy. Imagine “Nikestronomy” or “Lululemonliciousness” and you get the idea.

Yelp's voice is gender-neutral. As a progressive company, our communications should not suggest we make assumptions about the gender of our audience. Yelp is a product for people, built by people—it’s important that Yelp is respectful and inclusive in ways big and small. Here are a few tips to ensure your writing remains everyone-inclusive:
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• When writing in the third person, use they as a gender-neutral pronoun.
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• Don't refer to a group as guys or gals, regardless of the gender of the group.
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• Don't refer to a group of women as girls or a singular woman as a girl, even if you are a woman writing about women.
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• Use neutral nouns, e.g. server instead of waitress or waiter and driverless instead of unmanned.
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• Avoid modifying nouns to establish gender: Comedian and not comedienne, host and not hostess. Actor is preferable to actress, per the Screen Actors Guild.
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• There's no need to clarify gender for professions, so avoid constructions like male nurse or female doctor. 
When writing about a specific person, use whichever pronouns they prefer. If you're uncertain, don't use pronouns.

We have a whole separate style guide dedicated to UX writing (web and app) to check out. Whether you’re looking for general best practice or specific style questions—like, “how do we format date ranges?”—the copy Cookbook has everything you need.