A knowledge base is a collection of data that is useful to your customers. It can include things like: a glossary of terms, walkthroughs, instructional manuals, brochures, a community forum, and much more. It specifically aims to educate people on why what you’re selling is superior to your competitor’s.
Who Needs a Knowledge Base
Whether your site needs a knowledge library depends on what your site is meant to do for your audience. If you are frequently using industry-specific vernacular (commonly known as “lingo” or “jargon”), a glossary or dictionary on your site could prove useful to your customers. Chances are that they are not going to be familiar with the terms your industry uses. In addition to providing basic information, you present your company as a subject matter expert.
For example, I once heard Matt ask a customer who called him about a car project: “Do you know what your AFRs are?” The customer stuttered, and then said, “Uhm. What’s an AFR?”
If you don’t define terms for your audience, it’s likely you’ll lose them. Why? Because most people are uncomfortable being expected to know terminology they’ve never used and aren’t familiar with. Having a glossary available to them makes your company approachable, your website friendly, builds authority, demonstrates expertise, and helps your customer save face.
Can’t I Just Blog Instead?
Not really. A knowledge base is a separate portion of your website. Your blog is a type of knowledge base, because you’re presenting information to your audience that is (hopefully) useful to them. A separate library of information however, is a curated collection that is more like a manual or reference guide, primarily because it does not appear in chronological order.
What Will a Knowledge Base Do to my Website’s SEO?
When done correctly, a knowledge base will increase your SEO by leaps and bounds. First, it will increase the number of pages present on your website. Content is king when it comes to SEO—and quality matters. What else can a knowledge base do for your SEO?
- It gives you the opportunity to increase the internal links on your website. In some cases, it may also allow you to create some external links.
- It builds brand authority, which turns into trust and loyalty from your customers, making them more likely to buy from you.
- It gives you more searchable content, making your audience want to stay longer and engage more.
- It puts keywords together in ways that make search engines recognize their relevance in searches.
In brief, we recommend that our clients include a knowledge base if they frequently rely on industry-specific language or abbreviations. As always, if you have questions or would like to discuss creating a information database for your site, we’d love to chat with you about it!
See more information about knowledge base statistics here: 15 Knowledge base statistics for 2020