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You should regard your manual as a crucial component of your company concept. This is merely a list of general tips on how to get the most of your online assistance. If you use quality help authoring software, the most of the strategies are rather simple to put into practice. Use this advice to please your consumers, make your website more visible, draw in new customers, and improve revenue.
There are several primary reasons
why putting your software manual on-line is necessary. It makes your web-site
appealing for search engine crawlers and subsequently brings you designated
traffic from Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and other search engines. A decent internet
based manual makes your product serious and believable. Besides, in the event
that a user faces trouble using your software and asks for specialized support,
you may easily resolve the issue by alluding that user to a specific page of
your web-based help. Simply give the page's URL. With just a single tick the
user will see screenshots and explanations which will assist them with settling
the case.
Numerous software vendors, from
huge companies to free developers, obviously understand these reasons. They
made their assistance systems a piece of their web sites by expecting to draw
in additional prospects and to create more sales. Yet, even a sketchy analysis
of twelve manuals accessible online discloses a lot of normal mistakes which
might decrease the impact of this extremely useful asset. The principal reason
of the mistakes is erroneously considering an internet based manual as a
standalone report that user can download or peruse on the web site. The right
methodology is to make your assist a piece of your web with siting. This is a
simple task on the off chance that you keep these guidelines:
Make pages! Not a document
The most well-known mistake I saw
on numerous software vendors' web sites is that they offer their manual in a
single document: PDF, CHM, RTF, and so on. Positively it could be exceptionally
helpful for users to download a product manual document and use it on the
desktop, especially on the off chance that the manual is too enormous to
possibly be remembered for the software setup bundle. Yet, having an internet
based manual is not the same as having a manual on the web. Feel the
distinction!
It's exceptionally smart to
permit users to download a total manual as a single document. Anyway a document
might draw in just a couple of new visitors from search engines, regardless of
whether their crawlers can index your PDF or RTF. Also the record is almost
useless for your specialized support needs. For instance, you may not guide
users toward specific sections of your assist system by simply giving them with
coordinating URL links. Subsequently to get the most extreme impact out of your
assistance system you should make it a piece of your web site. Split the manual
into many pages and convert them into HTML. Almost all serious assistance
composing software allows sending out your assist document into HTML with
organizing. Each page must contain a specific section or a part of your manual.
Many pages which are generally small are easier for perusing, navigation, and
bookmarking. You nevertheless must keep the equilibrium. Try not to make a
great deal of minimal small pages that individuals must meander through to make
up a necessary solution. Each page should totally cover a specific point to the
point of solving a specific task. Besides, a page with effective substance is
ideal snare for search engine crawlers.
Follow well known style
Indeed, you have sent out your
assistance document into a set of HTML pages and are prepared to transfer them
to your server. Stop! Really take a look at the vibe of the pages. The set must
follow the familiar style distinguished by the corporate personality.
The advanced assistance creating
tools permit customizing appearance of pages through CSS or visual format
collections. The internet based manual must correspond to your web site style.
Use the same variety themes, fonts, and corporate graphics. Otherwise, the
entire task will seem to be an interwoven blanket. This is bad; it's far
superior to look steady, all around made due, and consistent.
"Where am I?" or don't
disregard navigation
Following well known style is not
just using the same colors and fonts. To plug manual's pages into the web site
structure you must add the high level navigation into them. Use the same high
level menu that you use on all pages of the site.
There are two critical benefits
of this method. First, this also makes your web site seem solid, consistent,
and thoroughly examined and along these lines works for your business
believability. Secondly, the high level navigation menu will bring new
designated leads from your manual pages to your product fundamental pages. The
prospects that have come from search engines are possible searching for
specific task solutions that likely are described in your web-based help. Then,
at that point, they will need to find out about the product that offers that solution.
Put right in front of them direct links to the software description page, to
the trial download region, to the estimating and requesting data, and to the
fundamental page of your web site. Tell them more about your organization. Tell
them about your software. Allow them to download it. Allow them to get it.
Besides offering prospects a high
level menu, you must furnish them with an easy method for exploring among
sections of the manual itself. Individuals have a solid sense of reassurance in
the event that they see the list of chapters alongside the page content.
Through this inner menu they may easily acknowledge where they and related
topics exist, and easily bounce there.
Stay away from frames
At first look, using frames seems
the ideal method for sorting out the inner menu of the assistance. Positively
frames are helpful for web site programming and upkeep because you might keep
your menu in a single record and show it in a separate edge. Nevertheless,
there are several disadvantages to using frames in your web-based help. At the
point when a visitor comes from a search engine to one of your assist pages,
they with willing see just that page's substance however will see neither high
level navigation nor online manual menus because they were expected to be shown
in other edge windows. So individuals who come from outer pages will neglect to
easily leap to different sections of your web site and to learn about your
products and related services.
In the event that you still
really like to use frames, you must use a workaround. One of the approaches is
to plug a special JavaScript code into each page of your web site. The script
will decide whether the page is showing in the casing or in the browser's
principal window. In the event that there is no casing distinguished, the
script will assemble the edge structure, will stack the menu pages in the
corresponding frames and will at last reload the ongoing page in the proper
casing. So the user will see the objective page alongside different elements of
the web site. Such unique redirection works for genuine visitors however
doesn't work for web spiders that will creep your internet based help pages.
Most of them can't parse JavaScript code and in this way can't access menus to
leap to different pages of your manual. For search engines your internet based
manual's pages will seem to be separate files that are not connected to one
another, or to the corporate web site. As a result, your assist pages with
willing get lowest page rank and will be shown toward the finish of the list
when someone is searching for related data on a search engine. Almost all SEO
and web design gurus suggest staying away from frames and put both menu and
content into a single HTML record.
Use direct links, not divert scripts
Like frames, using JavaScript in
menu is another no for making a web-based manual for your software. Using
normal URLs in menu links instead of JavaScript diverting helps web crawlers
appropriately index your web-based manual and rank its pages higher.
Assign special addresses to help pages
Also, the third significant
specialized aspect of online assistance writing is page address design. One of
key rules of search engine enhancement (SEO) implies to use static pages with
remarkable extremely durable addresses without parameters in them. A page with
address installation.htm is usually positioned higher than the same page with
address page.php?id=348. Consider this reality.
Give screenshots
Albeit one of your aims is to
draw in search engine's web robots that like words you should not disregard
genuine visitors who like pictures. Words usually can't do a picture justice.
Give as numerous succulent screenshots of your software as possible. This will
assist current users with understanding better the way that your software works
and will assist prospects with seeing how it looks prior to downloading a trial
or demo duplicate. Make your screenshots understood. Make sense of what every
window does and how its controls and elements work. Use callouts, balloons, and
special marks. Attempt to stuff as much data into the screenshots as possible.
A peruser must gander at them and say "Fantastic! Presently I know how it
works."
Make pages printable
Most possible users might want to
print out a specific piece of your web-based help. Sometimes design that looks
perfect on the display is dreadful when printed even on a decent printer.
Ensure that your manual's pages are printable in highly contrasting on the two
most famous paper sizes: A4 and Letter. Check assuming there are no enormous
pictures, no variety foundation, the fonts are easy to peruse, every one of the
substance fits the page width, etc.
Make your assistance easily reachable
So you have your assistance pages
finished and, surprisingly, transferred to the web server. How can you make
them visible to live website visitors as well as spiders? Most of the software
vendors misstep the same way. They believed that the manual is something
irrelevant that no one needs. They conceal the assistance section so somewhere
down in the website that a visitor has to make twelve clicks to arrive at the
assist with indexing page. This is off-base! Your manual is significant and
must be reachable in a few clicks. The best methodology is to put several links
to your manual in various sections of your web site: on product description
page, on support page, and on download page. These are the pages where users
hope to find an internet based help most of all. Show them your assistance
composing masterpiece.
Make your internet based manual searchable
Assuming your software is
convoluted and its assistance includes hundreds or even thousands of pages then
you must add search capabilities to your web-based manual. According to a
user's perspective it's more helpful to search a necessary subject by keywords
as opposed to glance through the endless list of topics in menu. The easiest
way is adding an outsider search script to your internet based manual. For
instance, Google offers Free Web Search script that you can duplicate paste
into your HTML code to permit individuals searching inside your site. Anyway
you will not have full command over the outsider scripts and their search
results might confuse you and your users. It's smarter to compose your own
search script on which you will have absolute control. You can customize it as
indicated by your needs all of a sudden. This first class strategy requires
significant efforts and may cost some cash on the off chance that you choose to
outsource it. Yet, the result is that you will have a strong data resource that
will really work for yourself and for your business.
Make a word guide of your assistance
Make a special Index page that
contains every one of the significant words with direct links to the pages
where these words are experienced. The Index page has two principal functions.
Firstly, it simplifies the subject search by catchphrase for users. Secondly,
the Index page will serve as a guide of your internet based help for web
spiders and will assist them to creep every one of the pages of your manual.
Make your assistance extendable
You might be shocked however the
web-based help might be live. You can make it a focal point of a web-based
local area. Just permit your software users to broaden your assistance pages
themselves. A genuine model is PHP online documentation. It allows users to
post their comments, code samples, and recommendations. Each page contains tons
of significant data contributed by users. This is an ideal illustration of how
exhausting documentation might frame a live local area and advance the product
likewise.