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Better SEO with Better Documentation

How a Better Documentation of Product is helpful for Search Engine Optimization

Good marketing strategies for your product helps to reach more people and showcase the product that you want to offer. A good marketing plan will surely help you to reach the targeted audiences. It will not only increase the visitors but also enhance the branding of the company and products. There is a great saying by Peter Drucker,

The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.

Marketing Strategies that are followed:

1) Joining and Creating a Group in Social Media:

The best way to reach out to people is through Social Media channels. Not only these are free to create but also helps in reaching out to people and to keep them updated about the recent activities. People can easily participate in various discussions and put forth their queries easily.

2) Guest Blogger:

In order to reach the people one can post their articles related to the product. One can even contact the bloggers and ask them to publish the articles on their sites.

3) Email Marketing:

Email Marketing works in a best way to generate leads and to follow up with the existing clients. The clients can be updated with the latest features and new updates through the emails.

4) Affiliates Program and Discount Coupons:

Various affiliates program and the discount coupons offered to the clients help to generate more and more traffic for the site. There is an increase in sales of the company when there are different discount coupons that are offered to the clients.

5) Documentation of Product:

The documentation of the product that is offered along with all the features that are listed for the website, and the back-links that one gets from this documentation will surely help to attract more visitors to your site. One should make use of a plugin that will help to represent the documents in a better way.

Besides these there can be other strategies that can be  followed depending upon the product and the features that it offers. Among all the Strategies one of the best way to have  a good SEO and to generate back links for the website is through Product Documentation.

Product Documentation: Important tool for SEO:

Back links to site:

When you write the documentation for the product then it is possible to give back links to the articles from the existing articles.

Good SEO:

Always make sure that the documentation should be keyword rich. It is very important to keep on updating the documentation and that will make it more google friendly.

Recognition from good authority sites:

One can also get the recognition from the good authority sites if the documentation is represented in a good way that will also attract the visitors from the other sites.

Multiple articles on same niche:

Articles such as How to’s and other articles related to the similar topics will be under same categories and that will help to list all the similar topics attracting more visitors.

If one pays attention for a better documentation of a website besides other marketing strategies then it will definitely help in driving the traffic and improving the SEO of the website.

Create Knowledge Base with Visitor Feedback Option using WordPress Plugin

While building up of a website one has realized the importance to build a Knowledge Base for providing the better customer service to the customers. It is not only helpful to the visitors but also to the staff agents as it saves their time for answering to the queries that has been included to the Knowledge Base. Besides this the customer can look upon the content any time and at any place without actually contacting the support team.

Getting Feedback from Visitors:

Visitor’s Feedback Options on Gmail Help

When a knowledge base has been put for the particular website, one should also know the importance of the feedback that one gets from their visitors. Below will highlight the points regarding the importance of visitors’ feedback:

  • Get to know about the things in which one is lacking:

Depending upon the feedback and the suggestions that one gets from the visitors, they get to know about the things in which they are lacking and they can work to improve it. This will help to provide a better experience to the users.

  • Customer Satisfaction:

If the customer is happy with the knowledge base that has been published and all their queries get solved due to it then they will provide with a positive feedback. Through this one gets to know whether the customer is satisfied and all his questions are resolved by going through the knowledge base.

  • Suggestions from visitors:

The visitors can also point out the things that are missing and the topics that requires more elaboration. Accordingly depending upon the feedback that the visitors give it can be implemented for the improvement of the knowledge base.

  • Scope of improvement of the content:

One can implement the things and the feed backs of the visitors for the content and they can work on it in order to improve it. This will improve the content and present it more appropriately to the visitors.

WordPress Plugin that allows Visitor Feedback option:

One of the most popular and useful WordPress Plugin that allows you to have a Visitor Feedback option is through Documentor. It helps to create online product documentations very easily. Different content types such as videos, images, PDF embeds, Google maps etc. are supported.

Simple steps to create knowledge base with Visitor Feedback option using Documentor:

Step 1] In order to use Documentor the Documentor WordPress Plugin is to be activated. After you have downloaded the zip file and added to the plugins folder go to:

Admin Panel >> Installed Plugins >> Documentor >> Activate

Ones the plugin is activated then one will find the Documentor option in the admin panel where the settings related to it can be done.

Step 2] The document can be created from:

Admin Panel >> Documentor >> Create New 

The new guide can be created and there can be different sections that can be added for the particular guide and different settings that can be applied for the same.

Step 3]  User can submit the feedback if the User’s feedback option is enabled from the settings. By default this option is enabled. One will find this option from:

Admin Panel >>Documentor >> Manage >> Select the particular document >Edit Section >> Settings (Advanced Settings) >> Visitor’s Feedback (enabled)

documentor-feedback

One needs to enable this option if he needs feedback from the visitors. Also one can select the fields that one wants to appear for the visitors on the front end from the Format option.

doc-2

One can make the changes for the fields for the feedback form and accordingly it will appear on the front end for the visitors. The visitors can post their suggestions and feedback by filling the details of the form.

Following these 3 Simple steps for creating knowledge base with Visitor feedback option using Documentor you are done!

Apart from Documentor, there re many other free plugins available for creating documentation but you may not find visitor’s feedback option there. Now you must have understood the importance of having an effective feedback option. This feature is good for the company as well as customers.

Create Knowledge Base using Documentor WordPress Plugin

Knowledge Base for WordPress

With a good product in hand or offering an amazing service, it is expected that it will be backed by a nice documentation or help guide. Common term for such documentation portal is Knowledge Base. After reading about the features of the released product e.g. software, WordPress theme, plugins etc. people usually move to check if a well documented knowledge base is present. It helps users in implementing and using the product without contacting the developer or concerned support team.

A good knowledge base also helps developer or company by reducing the number of support queries.

There are many ways through which you can create a knowledge base such as third-party cloud hosted platforms, Wiki platforms, custom HTML pages etc. In this tutorial, I will explain how to create a beautiful and neat knowledge base using WordPress with Documentor plugin.

Documentor, a WordPress plugin, enables you to can create and manage multiple documentation for different products or services. One can create a knowledge base or help solutions page using existing posts, pages, custom post types or by adding new documents (another Custom Post Type provided by Documentor). With the help of drag and drop method, it becomes very easy to maintain already created documentations as well.

The Knowledge Base created using Documentor can have two types of operations.

  1. Inline Documentation
  2. Ajax Enabled Documentation

Inline Documentation – A single page layout with fixed menu in left panel and content area in right side. The right side content will be highlighted depending on the click on left panel. All the documents are already loaded and appearing on the page, but when clicked on left menu, the highlighted content will scroll up or down. This operation is very easy to navigation as well as help in searching something on browser using CTRL + F key from the keyboard.

Ajax Enabled Documentation – If the documentation is very lengthy and bulky, it is suggested not to load the complete content at first. In this operation, when the left menu is clicked, the corresponding content will load from server using AJAX. It means the page will not get loaded, but the content will change.

Knowledge Base with User Feedback

A good knowledge base should have an option to receive feedback from visitors as well. It is available with Documentor where user can submit feedback by saying whether the documentation helped or requires some changes. The administrator will not notified about the feedback instantly.

To move the knowledge base from one domain to another, it comes with export/import feature. It allows you to move the documentation as well as the settings to new domain or even to a new server. This scenario comes if you want to move the knowledge base from test server or domain to production server. No need to put the effort of creating the knowledge base again or use some MySQL export/import methods. Just use our UI option to replicate the same knowledge base again on new server or domain.

Search Field for Better Search

Search in Knowledge Base is also what is required for good navigation and help. You will find a search box placed just above the left menu for easy search by the users. It searches and highlights the results for better access.

For offline reading, Documentor is having an option to download the complete knowledge base and read it later even if not connected with the Internet. Very helpful feature for those who want to go through the help documentation on the go.

Conclusion

As a matter of fact, a good Knowledge Base or Help Guide Documentation can be created using WordPress with the Documentor plugin. For the design implementation, the plugin comes with 5 ready skins to make the Knowledge base look professional and neat.

I hope you enjoyed reading this article. Share your feedback or comment via the form below or connect with us via Twitter and Facebook.

9 Answers on How a Good Documentation Helps to Boost Product Sales

Better documentation is a must for good products.

This simple quote is very helpful for increasing the product sales by a huge margin. As the product developer, you may know in and out of your products which includes UI navigation, usage and features. But even if you have provided a very good UI, people may have so many questions on how to use the product. That’s where the product documentation or guide or knowledge base plays an important role. A good documentation improved sale by 70% in the case of this slider WordPress plugin.

Most of the individual developers spend very less time on product documentation as they find this task a little boring. The reason behind that is very simple, as they are looking into the same product (while developing read as coding) from probably a month or so and they find it very easy to use. Now when it comes to write down the instructions, they usually skip many steps or how to’s (sometimes important ones) or may procrastinate the task too. As the final goal for the product development is reach as many users as one can, and that’s where they fail because of poor documentation.

Better Documentation with Documentor Plugin

If the product is well documented, it engages more users which eventually increase product sales. Here are few points in support of this statement that a better documentation can help you convert potential visitors into a customer.

# Build Functional Guarantee – Product may have so many features but whether it works or not, the documentation can explain that. In a user’s perspective, a good documentation build confidence in interested visitors and eventually tuned that into a customer.

# Clear Idea of Usage – How to use or implement the product’s feature is one of main question that interested buyer have. Better documentation answers such questions and finally that persons ends up buying the product.

# Works as a Demo – Most of the documentation comes with so many screenshots which plays as important role as a demo. Sometimes the screenshots or documentations only give an idea about the protected page or admin area.

# Engages Visitors – Rather than just reading the features of the product and leave, people will stay a little more on your site reading guides or documentation which may convert them into a customer. With features such as ‘Suggest or Submit Feedback‘ in your product’s documentation (available in Documentor) will help you engage with a potential buyer.

# Pitch More Products via documentation – While explaining one product’s instructions, you may introduce another product. While reading the instructions or steps for product A, people may find Product B useful too and that will increase your overall product’s sale.

# Advance users get Power – If your product comes with API or some other advance features, in that case documentation is must otherwise some advance users will not find your product useful.

# Trust Factor – Better documented product promises better after sale support and increases trust factor in the mindset of buyers. It reflects the dedicated f the developer or the company which eventually converts into sale.

# Better SEO and Traffic – Search engine like Google, Bing are of the best traffic source and we all know the important of SEO. Better documented products with indexed URLs appear at good position on SERP. Finally more traffic means more sale.

# Helpful for Clients, Lessen dependency – Imagine a developer who is working on some client’s project. Now if he buys your product and implements the same on his client’s site, at that time he can forward your product’s documentation to his client for future references. It will be very helpful for that developer or freelancer as he doesn’t need to do the documentation in his own words.

A well documented product is helpful for support team as well because it helps in reducing the number of support tickets. Support staff can easily forward the link of the tutorial or guide if the query is well documented as FAQ. Good documentation helps the Online Marketing team as well in better marketing of the product.

How much time should be assigned for documentation?

While creating the project plan for complete development and release of a product, I would recommend to assign 15 – 20% working effort for better documentation. This one time effort and minimal maintenance effort can play an important role in increasing number of sales of your product.