Mastering WordPress: A Step-by-Step Guide to Adding Documentation Effortlessly

Creating comprehensive documentation on your WordPress site is crucial for effectively guiding and supporting your users. Well-structured documentation helps them understand how to utilize your products or services, enhancing their overall experience.

For the past 16 years, we have developed numerous websites selling plugins and courses, consistently incorporating detailed documentation to assist our users. We address everything from installation procedures and feature guides to add-on details, making troubleshooting straightforward.

We have observed that this approach empowers users to resolve their own issues and fosters trust in our products, as they feel assured knowing we have organized all essential information clearly.

That’s why we advise adding documentation, whether you operate a product-focused business, a membership site, or an educational platform.

In this article, we will guide you through the simple process of adding documentation in WordPress, step by step. Our instructions will be easy to follow and will not require any coding skills.

Why is Documentation Important in WordPress?

Documentation refers to the content on your WordPress website that provides essential information on how to use your products or services, including their features, updates, add-ons, and more.

WordPress documentation encompasses how-to tutorials, guides, FAQs, knowledge bases, and API documentation.

For instance, if you operate an online store that offers music, you can create documentation explaining how to download music, renew licenses, or create playlists.

Incorporating documentation in WordPress enhances user experience by helping customers easily discover various product features, identify issues, and troubleshoot independently. This can also lead to a decrease in the number of support tickets submitted on your site.

Additionally, quality documentation can boost your SEO rankings by providing extra content that Google and other search engines can index and showcase in search results.

With that in mind, let’s explore how to effortlessly add documentation in WordPress, step by step.

Steps to Add Documentation in WordPress

You can seamlessly add documentation in WordPress using the Heroic KB plugin.

This is the top WordPress knowledge base plugin available, which integrates a searchable knowledge base into your existing website. It features AJAX search capabilities, drag-and-drop content organization, article attachments, and more.

Moreover, the tool includes built-in analytics and a user feedback option that allows you to gather insights to enhance your current documentation.

The Heroic AI Assistant feature allows you to effortlessly integrate a custom chatbot into your website. This chatbot is trained using your knowledge base, ensuring it delivers accurate and personalized responses to your customers.

Step 1: Set Up General Settings for Heroic KB

Begin by installing and activating the Heroic KB plugin. For comprehensive instructions, refer to our detailed guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After activation, navigate to the Heroic KB » Settings section in the WordPress admin sidebar and select the ‘License and Updates’ tab.

In this section, input your plugin’s license key and click the ‘Save Changes’ button. You can find this information in your account on the Heroic KB website.

Once you’ve entered the license key, go to the ‘Home & General’ tab in the left column. Here, you need to choose the documentation home page from the dropdown menu next to the ‘KB Home Page’ option.

If you select the ‘Knowledge Base Archive’ option, Heroic KB will automatically create a new page for your documentation at www.example.com/knowledge-base.

Alternatively, if you prefer to add your documentation to an existing page, you can select that option from the dropdown menu.

Next, enter the header text that will appear at the top of your documentation page.

After that, simply check the ‘Breadcrumbs’ option to activate it.

In a knowledge base, breadcrumbs serve as a navigation tool that helps users understand their path to the current page and allows them to return to previous pages, like this:Home » Products » Installation.

Next, select the number of category columns you want to display on your documentation page from the dropdown menu.

Then, check the ‘Display KB Category Counts’ option if you wish to show the number of articles available in each category.

Next, choose how many articles should be displayed under each category on the documentation home page using the ‘KB Category Article’ dropdown menu.

Then, you can check the ‘Hide Empty Categories’ and ‘Hide Uncategorized Articles’ options. This will prevent empty categories and uncategorized articles from appearing on your documentation home page.

After that, you can limit access to your WordPress documentation to logged-in users only by selecting the option from the ‘Restrict Access’ dropdown menu.

Once you are finished, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to apply your settings.

Step 2: Configure Categories, Tags, and Article Settings

Next, navigate to the ‘Categories & Tags’ tab in the left column. Here, you can organize your categories and tags, as well as specify the number of articles displayed for each category.

You also have the option to check the ‘Article Excerpt’ box if you wish to show a snippet of each article beneath its corresponding category in your documentation.

Afterward, simply click the ‘Save Changes’ button and proceed to the ‘Article’ tab.

In this section, you can select various options to enable a comments section for your documentation articles, display author bios, or showcase related articles beneath each tutorial.

Once you’ve made your selections, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to apply your settings.

Step 3: Configure Knowledgebase Search and Slug Settings

Now, go to the ‘Search’ tab and check the ‘Search Focus’ box if you want the documentation search box to automatically be in focus when the page loads.

Additionally, you can add placeholder text for the search box, show article excerpts in the search results, and enable the plugin to highlight the search term within the results.

After completing that step, click ‘Save Changes’ and navigate to the ‘Slugs’ tab.

In this section, you can create slugs for your documentation articles, categories, and tags.

Once you’ve made your selections, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to apply your settings.

Step 4: Customize Knowledgebase Sidebar and Style Settings

Next, go to the ‘Sidebars’ tab to choose a layout for the sidebars on your documentation pages.

You can select different positions for the home sidebar, category sidebar, and articles sidebar. Additionally, you can enable the ‘Sticky Article Sidebar?’ option to create a sticky sidebar for your pages.

Once you’ve done that, click ‘Save Changes’ and move on to the ‘Styles’ tab.

Here, you can customize your documentation’s width, link color, header style, and text color to suit your preferences.

Then, simply click the ‘Save Changes’ button.

Step 5: Configure Article Feedback and Email Settings

Next, navigate to the ‘Article Feedback’ tab and enable the ‘Enable Feedback’ option to allow users to provide ratings for your articles.

You can implement an upvote/downvote feature for your WordPress documentation by selecting those options. This enables users to provide feedback on whether your documentation effectively addresses their issues.

Next, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to apply your settings.

Then, navigate to the ‘Email Reports’ tab in the left column and enable the ‘Enable Email Reports?’ option if you wish to receive weekly updates on your documentation from Heroic KB.

This report will summarize the total views and average ratings of your documentation articles, along with a list of the top-performing and highest-rated articles for that week.

After that, enter your admin email address in the ‘Report Recipients’ field. You can also include multiple email addresses if desired.

Once done, click the ‘Save Changes’ button to confirm your settings.

Having configured all the settings for the Heroic KB plugin, it’s time to begin creating documentation for your website.

Step 6: Create Documentation for Your WordPress Site

You can develop how-to articles, knowledge base entries, guides, and FAQs for your documentation.

To initiate the creation of a new document, go to the Heroic KB » Add New Article page within the WordPress dashboard.

This will open the WordPress content editor, allowing you to create a heading for your documentation article and begin writing the content. You can also click the ‘+’ button in the top left corner to add various blocks to your content.

After writing your documentation article, expand the ‘Categories’ tab in the block panel and click on the ‘Add New Article Category’ link.

Next, create a category that corresponds to the article you are writing.

Then, expand the ‘Tags’ section in the block panel and add as many relevant tags as you wish for your documentation article.

You can also include an excerpt for the article by expanding the ‘Excerpt’ tab.

Next, expand the ‘Discussion’ tab and uncheck the ‘Allow comments’ option if you want to disable comments for this article. If you prefer to allow comments, you can leave this setting enabled.

You can also attach files to your articles in the documentation. To do this, scroll down to the ‘Article Options’ section in the block editor and click the ‘Add or Upload Files’ button.

This will open the media library, where you can add any attachments you desire.

To ensure that attachments within the article open in a new window when clicked, check the ‘Attachments in New Window’ option.

If desired, you can disable the upvote and downvote feature for certain articles by navigating to the ‘Voting Options’ section.

In this section, select the ‘Disable Voting’ option to turn off the upvote and downvote feature for the specific article.

When you’re ready, click the ‘Publish’ button at the top to make your article available as documentation.

To add more entries to your documentation across various categories, simply repeat the process.

After completing this, you can easily access the documentation by going to the www.example.com/knowledge-base page, or by visiting the custom page you selected for your documentation.

Step 7: Adjust the Order of Articles and Categories in Your Documentation

With Heroic KB, you can rearrange the articles displayed in your WordPress knowledge base. To do this, go to the Heroic KB Article Ordering page within the WordPress dashboard.

Select the category for which you wish to modify the article order, then simply drag and drop the articles to organize them as you prefer.

After completing your changes, be sure to click the ‘Save Order’ button to preserve your settings.

To rearrange the order of categories on your documentation page, navigate to theHeroic KB » Category Orderingsection in the WordPress admin sidebar.

Here, you can easily rearrange the categories by dragging and dropping them. Once you’re satisfied with the new order, click the ‘Save Order’ button to save your changes.

Congratulations! You have successfully created documentation for your website and adjusted the order of categories and articles.

Bonus: How to Add an FAQ Section to Your WordPress Site

Incorporating documentation into your WordPress site is an excellent way to assist your users in finding the information they seek. Additionally, you can include FAQs (frequently asked questions) alongside your blog posts to address common inquiries related to your content.

This approach can enhance user engagement on your WordPress blog and foster trust and credibility with your audience by demonstrating that you understand their questions and concerns.

Moreover, adding FAQs can boost your SEO rankings by enabling the use of long-tail keywords that users frequently search for in search engines.

Effortlessly incorporate FAQs into your website with All in One SEO (AIOSEO), the leading WordPress SEO plugin designed to enhance your site’s visibility and improve search engine rankings.

AIOSEO features a simple FAQ block that can be seamlessly added to the block editor, allowing you to easily input questions and answers for your FAQ section.

Customize your FAQ section directly from the block panel with AIOSEO, adjusting text color, background color, typography, and title wrapper, making it the top choice for WordPress FAQ plugins.

Additionally, the plugin includes FAQ schema markup, which can enhance your website’s rankings and increase organic click-through rates by displaying your frequently asked questions directly in Google search results.

For comprehensive guidance, check out our tutorial on adding a Frequently Asked Questions section in WordPress.

We hope this article has helped you understand how to add documentation in WordPress. You may also find our beginner’s guide on hiring virtual assistants for your WordPress site and our expert recommendations for the best technical documentation software for WordPress useful.

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