How to Begin a Knowledge Base

Creating a knowledge base might seem a daunting task initially, however there are several things that can help you get yours functional quickly and with minimal effort.

Start with Frequent Questions

Frequently asked questions are an excellent way to start any knowledge base, since this has the most dramatic impact on your readers, because the questions they are asking have likely been asked before by others.

Your team may already have a list of frequently asked questions, or information they are often asked about, these might include things like specification documents, images, videos, pricing or many other type of information your customers need to understand. This same thinking applies across all industries and is not associated purely with software, so think big.

Add How-To Guides

In addition to FAQs, customers often want to find out how to do things themselves, whether it's setting up your product, returning it, upgrading it or anything else they might wish to do. Adding how-to guides can be a great inspiration for finding content.

Remember, every complete and meaningful article you provide means that a customer or user somewhere is likely to read that instead of either becoming frustrated, or reluctantly contacting your support team for a solution.

Leverage Existing Documentation

Existing Documents If you have notes, whether internal to your organization, or currently published in pdf or other document types, these can be a great source of content to include.

Using the GoGoWorx service, it is very easy to cut and paste information into your knowledge base, including rich media such as images and videos, as well as simply text. If some of your team members are prone to typos, or could benefit from the styling assistance or review from a once-over from a colleague, then it's easy for someone to create a draft (unpublished) article that someone else can clean up and publish.

If you have lots of existing information in some structured format that could be automatically imported to GoGoWorx, then please contact our support team to see if they can assist in importing that information in some automated, or even semi-automated way. We're here to help!

Customer Forums

Another powerful source of content for your knowledge base can be forums, where customers have asked questions, reported issues, or vented frustration. Listening to your customers' concerns is fundamental to providing a better customer experience.

Depending on whether these forums are in-house or hosted elsewhere, you may be able to gather that information and import it to GoGoWorx easily. Again, if you have a lot of structured information that you need help importing, let our support team know so they can help.

One Step at a Time

Initial Steps If you don't have a deep, rich source of material to start your knowledge base with, don't worry. Take it one step at a time - you will be surprised how quickly you can grow your knowledge base if your whole team is committed to creating one.

You don't need to add colorful or styling content right away (but that helps!), so just work with what you have and improve over time. Periodic reviews of articles and rearranging categories when needed is easily achieved.

Use Article Templates

Whenever you create a new article, you have the choice of several template to select from. These are designed to give you some framework and encouragement in being able to quickly generate content.

In the Articles page, clicking the Add Article button will display a list of available article templates, along with a brief description of each. Scroll through and select one that is the closest to your requirements, then modify the article as needed from there.

You also have the option of creating a new article using the Blank Article template, where you can start from an empty article yourself.