#WCORL – Write Better Documentation

Speaker: Jeff Matson
Twitter: @TheJeffMatson
Website: jeffmatson.net

Why write documentation?

• Support ticket reduction
• Customer satisfaction
• Increase Traffic
• Converts to sales

Good documentation shows you care. Helps the support reps. No more need to repeatedly write the same solutions, a link to the docs suffices.

How to get the most from it

• Use Visuals
  More likely to get a support customer to go through the process of fixing it themselves. Helps reduce support rep phone time.
• Write it in the simplest way you can, write like you’re explaining to 5 year olds.
• Make sure you to keep it up to date
• Target search engines (leads to more traffic)
• Allow for comments
  this can drive (voluntary!) community support, further reducing load for your support reps
• User-Submitted Documentation
  Helps all the people. Exposure for the submitter, additional traffic for your website.
• Overlapping keywords
  People searching for support with competing plugins can come across your documentation. Leads to the impression that your plugin is better and sale conversion as a result.

How do you get people to submit documentation?
– Give them an incentive to do so. For example, Inmotion may offer perks like swag, hosting, etc.