Have you ever wondered why all the hard work you’ve put into your technical documentation seems to go unnoticed online?
The answer is…search engine optimization.
If you’re a technical writer who wants to know how to use SEO to reach more users and get your content seen, you’re in the right place.
SEO for technical documentation isn’t magic. It’s just knowing how search engines work and using a few simple tricks to optimize your content. Let’s get into it…
In this post, you’ll learn:
- Why technical writers need SEO skills
- How to optimize documentation for search engines
- Tools that will make SEO for technical writers easier
- Strategies that will actually work
Why Technical Writers Need SEO Skills Today
Here’s the thing most technical writers don’t realize…
The purpose of your documentation is to be found.
It doesn’t matter how well written, informative, or useful your technical content is if users can’t easily find it online.
Let’s face it. When a user runs into a problem using your product:
- They don’t open your PDF user manual.
- They don’t read the online help section.
- They Google it.
If your documentation doesn’t rank for their search query, they will look for the answer elsewhere. Probably on Reddit or Stack Overflow.
SEO for technical writers matters because by optimizing your documentation for search engines, you make it more likely that users will find it when they need it. This means better user experience, fewer support tickets, and ultimately, happier customers.
Technical Writing & SEO: The Connection
Surprisingly, technical writing has a lot in common with SEO.
Both are concerned with:
- Clarity
- Structure
- Delivering information that meets user needs
In fact, the main difference between the two is that SEO just adds a layer of optimization on top of this to make it easier for search engines to “read” your content.
That’s right…search engines like Google are essentially trying to solve the same problem as technical writers – matching people with the right information they need. When you optimize technical documentation for SEO, you’re just helping Google do its job faster.
SEO also matters because according to recent data, 53% of users leave a website if the page load time is more than 3 seconds. This means your technical documentation must be optimized to be fast and accessible to users, not just well-written.
SEO Skills Every Technical Writer Needs
OK, so what SEO skills do technical writers actually need?
First of all, don’t panic. You don’t need to be an SEO expert to do this.
But there are a few fundamental skills that will serve you well:
Keyword Research
The whole purpose of SEO is to help your content be discovered when users search for the right terms. You need to do keyword research to understand exactly what people are searching for. Is something a configuration file or a settings file? You be the judge.
Content Structure
Search engines love well-structured content. That means using headings (H1, H2, H3), short paragraphs, and clear section breaks. The good news? That’s also good technical writing practice.
Meta Descriptions & Title Tags
Meta descriptions are those little snippets of text you see in Google search results. Writing compelling meta descriptions is just a technical writing skill of writing a good summary.
Internal Linking
Linking between related pages of documentation helps search engines understand the structure of your information and how it’s all related. It also helps users navigate documentation.
Optimizing Technical Documentation for Search
All right, all theory now time for some practice. How do you actually optimize technical documentation for SEO?
First, the headings. You H1 is the most important. It should include the primary keyword you are targeting in that piece of documentation. H1s should be something like “API Authentication Guide” or “How to Authenticate API Requests.”
Content Structure
Structure your content logically under H2 and H3 headings for subsections. Keep paragraphs short (2-3 sentences max) so it’s scannable.
Page Speed
Technical documentation pages can get slow due to images, screenshots, code samples, etc. Make sure to optimize those.
Content-First Approach
A note before we move on…
Don’t lose sight of the fact that SEO should always come second to good technical writing.
SEO is there to help get your content found but not at the expense of clarity and usefulness. If your documentation is full of keyword stuffing but isn’t helpful to users, it will tank in both search and user ratings.
Write clean, clear documentation first. Then go back and apply SEO techniques to it. You can add relevant keywords to headings and subheadings. Improve your page titles and write meta descriptions. Add alt text to images and write internal links to related documentation pages.
Useful Tools That Make SEO Easier
Don’t spend money on fancy tools.
You don’t need to use expensive paid SEO tools to start optimizing your technical documentation. In fact, you don’t even need to download or install anything. Here are some free tools that work great for optimizing documentation:
Google Search Console
Show you which search terms are bringing traffic to your documentation, show technical issues.
PageSpeed Insights
Help you diagnose and fix page speed issues that could hurt your rankings.
Keyword Research Tools
Keyword research tools like Answer The Public or Google’s autocomplete search feature can give you insight into what users are actually searching for.
Also, many technical writing tools like MadCap Flare, GitBook, etc. now have built-in SEO features and settings you can configure as well.
SEO-Friendly Documentation Structure
Website structure is important for SEO. Not just for users but also for search engines.
Your documentation structure should make sense in a clear hierarchy from top level to more detailed information.
For example, here’s a top-level site navigation menu that makes sense for both users and search engines:
- Getting Started
- Installation Guide
- Quick Start Tutorial
- Configuration
- Basic Settings
- Advanced Configuration
You can make use of breadcrumb navigation to further reinforce this structure and show both users and search engines where they are in the documentation hierarchy.
Measuring Success
So how do you know if your SEO is working?
Here are some key metrics to track in Google Search Console:
- Impressions (how often your page appears in search results)
- Clicks (how many people actually click on your page from the search results)
- Average Position (what position your page typically ranks)
- Click Through Rate
Producing regular new content can lead to 434% higher indexation rates, according to data. The same is true of technical documentation – the more regularly you add new documentation or update existing pages, the better they will rank.
SEO for technical writing isn’t an overnight fix. SEO is a long game and you should expect to see results in 3-6 months or more before you start to see any major changes in your rankings.
Wrapping Up Technical Writing For SEO
Technical writing for SEO isn’t about gaming the system to boost your rankings. It’s about taking the already high-quality content you’re producing and just making it more findable.
If you already do a great job of producing user-focused technical content for your product, this post should give you a framework and simple, actionable steps to take that content to the next level and reach more users.
Start with one page of documentation and optimize it using some of the techniques in this article.
Add a relevant keyword to your headings, improve your page title, write a descriptive meta description, add alt tags to images, and build internal links to related pages. Then measure the results, refine, and expand.
SEO for technical writers is just another tool in your content production toolbox. You don’t need to be a guru. But learning the basics of SEO and applying them will help you create more discoverable technical documentation.