There are several main reasons why putting

your software manual on-line is necessary.

It makes your web-site attractive for search engine

crawlers and therefore brings you targeted

traffic from Google, Yahoo!, MSN,

and other search engines. A good online

manual makes your product serious and

credible. Moreover, if a user faces difficulty

using your software and asks for

technical support, you may easily resolve

the issue by referring that user to a certain

page of your online help. Simply give the

page's URL. With just one click the user

will see screenshots and explanations

which will help them to settle the case.

Many software vendors, from large

companies to independent developers,

clearly understand these reasons. They

made their help systems a part of their

web sites by aiming to attract more prospects

and to generate more sales. But

even a sketchy analysis of a dozen manuals

available online discloses a bunch of

common mistakes which may reduce the

effect of this very powerful tool. The

main reason of the mistakes is incorrectly

considering an online manual as a

standalone document that user can download

or read on the web site. The right

approach is to make your help a part of

your web site. This is a pretty simple task

if you follow these rules:

Make pages! Not a file

The most common mistake I noticed on

many software vendors' web sites is that

they offer their manual in a single file:

PDF, CHM, RTF, etc. Certainly it may be

very convenient for users to download a

product manual file and use it on the

desktop, especially if the manual is too

large to be included in the software setup

package. But having an online manual is

not the same as having a manual online.

Feel the difference!

It's very smart to allow users to

download a complete manual as a single

file. However a file may attract just a few

new visitors from search engines, even if

their crawlers are able to index your PDF

or RTF. Also the file is almost useless for

your technical support needs. For instance,

you may not point users to certain

sections of your help system by simply

giving them direct URL links.

Hence to get the maximum effect out

of your help system you should make it a

part of your web site. Split the manual

into many pages and convert them into

HTML. Almost all serious help authoring

software allows exporting your help file

into HTML format. Each page must

contain a certain section or a chapter of

your manual. Many pages which are

relatively small are easier for reading,

navigation, and bookmarking. You nevertheless

must keep the balance. Don't

make a lot of little dinky pages that people

must roam through to make up a

required solution. Each page should

completely cover a certain topic enough

to solve a certain task. Furthermore, a

page with topical content is perfect bait

for search engine crawlers.

Follow common style

Well, you have exported your help file

into a set of HTML pages and are ready

to upload them to your server. Stop!

Check the look of the pages. The set must

follow the common style identified by the

corporate identity.

The modern help authoring tools

allow customizing appearance of pages

by means of CSS or visual template collections.

The online manual must correspond

to your web site style. Use the

same color themes, fonts, and corporate

graphics. Otherwise, the whole project

will look like a patchwork quilt. This is

not good; it's far better to look steady,

well-managed, and consistent.

"Where am I?" or don't ignore navigation

Following common style is not just using

the same colors and fonts. To plug manual's

pages into the web site structure you

must add the top level navigation into

them. Use the same top level menu that

you use on all pages of the site.

There are two key benefits of this

technique. First, this also makes your web

site appear solid, consistent, and

well-thought-out and therefore works for

your business credibility. Secondly, the

top level navigation menu will bring new

targeted leads from your manual pages to

your product main pages. The prospects

that have come from search engines are

likely looking for specific task solutions

that probably are described in your online

help. Then they will want to know more

about the product that offers that solution.

Put under their nose direct links to the

software description page, to the trial

download area, to the pricing and ordering

info, and to the main page of your

web site. Let them know more about your

company. Let them know about your

software. Let them download it. Let them

buy it.

Besides offering prospects a toplevel

menu, you must provide them with

an easy way to navigate among sections

of the manual itself. People feel more

secure if they see the table of contents

along with the page content. Through this

internal menu they may easily realize

where they are and what related topics

exist, and easily jump there.

Use Dr.Explain - the fastest way to make help files!

Avoid frames

At first glance, using frames seems the

perfect way to organize the internal menu

of the help. Certainly frames are convenient

for web site programming and

maintenance because you may keep your

menu in a single file and show it in a

separate frame. Nevertheless, there are

several disadvantages to using frames in

your online help. When a visitor comes

from a search engine to one of your help

pages, they will see only that page's

content but will see neither top-level

navigation nor online manual menus

because they were intended to be shown

in other frame windows. So the people

who come from external pages will fail to

easily jump to other sections of your web

site and to read about your products and

related services.

If you still prefer to use frames then

you must use a workaround. One of the

approaches is to plug a special JavaScript

code into every page of your web site.

The script will determine if the page is

showing in the frame or in the browser's

main window. If there is no frame detected

then the script will build the frame

structure, will load the menu pages in the

corresponding frames and will finally

reload the current page in the appropriate

frame. So the user will see the target page

along with other elements of the web site.

Such dynamic redirection works for real

visitors but doesn't work for web spiders

that will crawl your online help pages.

Most of them cannot parse JavaScript

code and therefore cannot access menus

to jump to other pages of your manual.

For search engines your online manual's

pages will look like separate files that are

not linked to each other, or to the corporate

web site. As a result, your help

pages will receive lowest page rank and

will be shown in the end of the list when

someone is looking for related info on a

search engine. Almost all SEO and web

design gurus recommend avoiding frames

and put both menu and content into a

single HTML file.

Use direct links, not redirect scripts

Like frames, using JavaScript in menu is

another no-no for creating an online

manual for your software. Using regular

URLs in menu links instead of JavaScript

redirecting helps web crawlers properly

index your online manual and rank its

pages higher.

Assign unique addresses to help pages

And the third important technical aspect

of online help authoring is page address

format. One of key rules of search engine

optimization (SEO) implies to use static

pages with unique permanent addresses

without parameters in them. A page with

address installation.htm is usually ranked

higher than the same page with address

page.php?id=348. Take this fact into

account.

Give screenshots

Although one of your aims is to attract

search engine's web robots that like

words you should not forget about real

visitors who like pictures. A picture is

worth a thousand words. Give as many

juicy screenshots of your software as

possible. This will help current users

understand better how your software

works and will help prospects to see how

it looks before downloading a trial or

demo copy. Make your screenshots clear.

Explain what each window does and how

its controls and elements work. Use

callouts, balloons, and special marks. Try

to stuff as much info into the screenshots

as possible. A reader must look at them

and say "Great! Now I know how it

works."

Make pages printable

Most likely users would like to print out

a certain part of your online help. Sometimes

design that looks great on the display

is awful when printed even on a

good printer. Make sure that your manual's

pages are printable in black and

white at least on the two most popular

paper sizes: A4 and Letter. Check if there

are no big pictures, no color background,

the fonts are easy to read, all the content

fits the page width, and so on.

Make your help easily reachable

So you have your help pages completed

and even uploaded to the web server.

How to make them visible to web spiders

and to live visitors of your web site?

Most of the software vendors make the

same mistake. They thought that the

manual is something unimportant that

nobody needs. They hide the help section

so deep in the website that a visitor has to

make a dozen clicks to reach the help

index page. This is wrong! Your manual

is important and must be reachable in two

to three clicks. The best approach is to

place several links to your manual in

different sections of your web site: on

product description page, on support

page, and on download page. These are

the pages where users expect to find an

online help most of all. Show them your

help-authoring masterpiece.

Make your online manual searchable

If your software is complicated and its

help includes hundreds or even thousands

of pages then you must add search capabilities

to your online manual. From a

user's point of view it's more convenient

to search a required topic by keywords

rather than to look through the endless list

of topics in menu. The easiest way is

adding a third-party search script to your

online manual. For instance, Google

offers Free WebSearch script that you can

copy-paste into your HTML code to

allow people searching within your site.

However you won't have full control over

the third-party scripts and their search

results may confuse you and your users.

It's better to write your own search script

on which you will have total control. You

can customize it according to your needs

at any moment. This top-notch technique

requires significant efforts and may cost

some money if you decide to outsource it.

But the result is that you will have a

powerful information resource that will

effectively work for you and for your

business.

Create a word map of your help

Make a special Index page that contains

all the significant words with direct links

to the pages where these words are encountered.

The Index page has two main

functions. Firstly, it simplifies the topic

search by keyword for users. Secondly,

the Index page will serve as a map of

your online help for web spiders and will

assist them to crawl all the pages of your

manual.

Make your help extendable

You may be surprised but the online help

may be live. You can make it a center of

an online community. Just allow your

software users to extend your help pages

themselves. A good example is PHP

online documentation. It allows users to

post their comments, code samples, and

recommendations. Each page contains

tons of valuable information contributed

by users. This is a perfect example of

how boring documentation may form a

live community and promote the product

accordingly.

To summarize the above tips: You

must consider your manual as an important

part of your business model. This is

just a set of general recommendations

how to get the maximum effect out of

your online help. Most of the techniques

are pretty easy to implement if you use

good help authoring software. Apply this

advice and make your customers feel

happy, increase your web site visibility,

attract new prospects, and generate new

sales.