About Your Five Star Rated Profile
Your profile is displayed in our print publications and on the Five Star Rated (FSR) website. Our publication uses the following standards and guidelines to ensure consistency and create a good experience for the homeowners who receive the publication.
Periodic Updates
From year to year, you may notice small changes to formatting and layout in your Five Star Rated profiles, along with changes to content. We want to keep our publication accurate, clear, and easy for homeowners to use. To accomplish that goal, we may update the following in our guidebooks:
- Profile layout to increase readability
- Profile section titles for clarity and readability
- Punctuation and grammar adjustments
- Capitalization adjustments
- Wording changes to awards, memberships, certifications, etc., for accuracy
General Rules for Company Profiles
Space limitations
- Company profile space is limited.
- We provide a general character limit as a guideline, but keep in mind that long words and wide letters take up more space than short words and narrow letters.
- All your profile sections combined should be an average of 1,030 characters in length.
- Font style, size, and spacing cannot be adjusted.
Tone and style
- We use straightforward and unbiased language.
- Final wording is left to the discretion of the editorial department.
- The editorial department uses an in-house style guide based on The Chicago Manual of Style and Merriam-Webster’s dictionary for spelling.
- The use of capital letters is generally reserved for proper nouns, brand names, titles preceding a person’s name, and titles of organizations, awards, and certifications. We do not generally use capital letters to add emphasis to words or phrases.
- Use of bolded, italicized, or underlined words is not permitted.
- Profile content tends toward sentence case rather than title case.
Content
- We do not print the following:
- Offensive, aggressive, or critical language.
- Information that gives one company an unfair advantage over others, such as price-match guarantees.
- Information that categorizes a company based on religion.
- We refrain from printing occupational/trade licenses and license numbers required for the categories you work in within the body of the profile. Required licenses will instead be printed above the body of the profile, underneath the company name.
- The final wording of the profile is left to the discretion of the editorial team.
Updating your Company Profile
Renewing with Five Star Rated
If you’re renewing your participation in Five Star Rated for the upcoming year, your Customer Experience representative will alert you to review your profile and provide any desired updates. The editorial department fact-checks claims in the profile annually.
You can make up to two rounds of revisions per profile, but please be thorough and clear in your first revision request. The most recent version of your profile will be printed as-is if revisions are not approved by the print deadline.
New to Five Star Rated or new to a category
If you’re just starting with Five Star Rated, we will create your new profile based on the information provided by you in the New Company Form. If your company has qualified for a new category, we will create a new profile based on your existing profile and/or your company’s website. Once your profile is created, we will ask you to review the information for accuracy.
Please submit any revisions as promptly as possible. You can make up to two rounds of revisions per profile, but please be thorough and clear in your first revision request.
Additional Questions
Please let us know if you have any additional questions. Send us an email at [email protected] or call us directly at (877) 902-7575.