Guest post by Natasha Lane.
How-to guides are among the most popular pieces of content on the Internet—but only if they’re informative, educational, and entertaining.
Image credit: Thomas Lefebvre on Unsplash
Blog posts that provide detailed answers to your audience’s most pressing questions can drive a lot of high-quality traffic and generate conversions. They can deal with both simple and complex concepts. The key is to add value to your readers and help them solve a problem or learn something new.
Although the idea behind an effective how-to guide article is pretty straightforward, the execution can be challenging.
Here are six best practices for creating effective how-to guide articles that won’t be boring or overwhelming.
1. Do Your Research
While you can pick a topic and put together a decent how-to guide solely based on your expertise, it will require additional research for you to create a piece of content that stands out among all the other resources covering the same topic.
Being an expert in a particular field can make it even more difficult to craft a successful how-to guide. That’s because you’ll be naturally inclined to write about what you think is important rather than what your readers really want to know.
In addition, only 0.78% of people click on a result from the second page in search, meaning that unless your content is properly optimized for search engines, it will be buried under an avalanche of other results.
Another risk in simply picking a topic you’re highly familiar with is that you can’t be sure there is a significant level of interest in what you want to write about.
That’s why conducting thorough SEO keyword research is essential.
It will:
- tell you what your target audience is searching for online;
- give you insights into the specific keywords they’re using;
- show you trending topics; and
- enable you to keep an eye on what your competitors are writing about and how their content is performing.
After you’ve identified the topic you’ll write about and analyzed the keywords relevant to it, your next step should be to check out the top Google result. That will give you a sense of direction and ideas about what sections your how-to guide article should have.
Besides including all these sections, try to expand on them, offer your unique take on different aspects of the problem, and delve into points not discussed in the original post.
For example, if you want to instruct your audience on how to create pillar content that Google will love, take a cue from the Content Marketing Institute’s ultimate guide of the same name. It provides a detailed anatomy of a top-performing pillar page, together with actionable tips.
2. Chunk Your Content
No matter how well-written your how-to guide article is, your audience will give up reading if it’s not easy on the eyes.
Image credit: Adam Satria on Unsplash
Nobody wants to see a wall of text, especially when they’re trying to find an answer to a particular question or step-by-step instructions on how to do something.
80% of web users only scan and skim through your content and read the headlines; just 20% read the rest of the text.
That’s why it’s crucial to break up your how-to guides, split them into smaller paragraphs, and use H2, H3, and H4 headers along with bullet points to create bite-sized pieces of information. Since some how-to guides can be long, implementing such a structure will make them more reader-friendly.
To get an idea of how to chunk your content properly, take a look at this highly readable guide for buying the best mattress and notice how well it is organized despite its large word count.
3. Include Visuals
According to studies, people who follow directions with illustrations perform 323% better than those who follow only text without explanatory graphics.
Use illuminating visuals to help your readers understand and visualize your explanations. This approach can be particularly useful when your how-to guide contains technical details and requires performing certain steps in a specific order.
People who aren’t tech-savvy can have a problem finding their footing, so charts, illustrations, videos, or infographics can come in handy.
Presetlove leveraged gifs and screenshots in their comprehensive, step-by-step guide on how to install Lightroom Presets. The blog post details how to install different versions of the software on various devices and goes on to explain the basics of how to make the most of it.
Source: presetlove.com
Visuals make it easier for people who aren’t experts in your topic area to understand all of the steps and take action.
4. Avoid Industry Jargon
In an attempt to sound more sophisticated and showcase their expertise, some content creators get carried away with the use of technical terminology.
Using unfamiliar jargon and arcane acronyms is a surefire way to alienate your potential readers who have clicked on your how-to guide to learn more about solving a particular problem.
Before you start crafting your educational piece of content, learn as much as possible about your target audience and their level of understanding. Then try to put yourself in their shoes and use language that will be easy for them to follow.
That’s what Medical Alert Buyers Guide did in their article that explains how to choose a medical alert system from Walmart. Since the target audience for this kind of guide is primarily the elderly, the language and tone are tailored to resonate with them—no esoteric buzzwords or complex explanations.
Use short sentences, simplify your wording, and stick to terms and phrases that most people can comprehend. Hemingway App is a free tool that can help you improve your writing and fluency, will highlight all the complex structures, and offer simpler alternatives.
5. Include Studies and Statistics
Studies, stats, and examples that corroborate your claims help to establish authority and credibility, demonstrating to your audience you know what you’re talking about.
Pick only relevant and recent sources, as that will build trust with your audience. Referencing reputable publications will show your readers you did your homework to find hard facts and credible information.
Though you first and foremost write for your audience, keep in mind that Google also prefers well-researched and supported content. By including reliable sources, search engines will perceive your content as trustworthy and reward it with high rankings.
Although authority on all things marketing himself, Neil Patel quotes lots of reputable sources throughout his how-to guides, thus driving substantial traffic and reaching the top of Google search results.
6. Update Regularly
When properly written, how-to guides have the potential to become evergreen content.
Image credit: Freepik.com
Because of their usefulness and value, they don’t become outdated—at least not as quickly as news-oriented blog posts.
To keep your traffic-generating, well-researched how-to guide fresh, update it regularly by adding new tips and points, as well as current research sources. This will keep your readers engaged and get them to stay longer on your website.
Another upside of this tactic is that you’ll save time and resources, since it takes significantly less to polish and redo your existing article than write a new one from scratch.
Finally, since Google rolls out algorithm updates several times a year, updating a well-performing how-to guide will allow you to adjust it to new changes and prevent the negative impacts that algorithm updates can bring about.
Apart from ticking all the right boxes, this Grammarly guide on how to write a report is a great example of updating content to make it more relevant and increase its value over time.
Final Thoughts
Writing how-to guide articles is a powerful way to establish yourself as an authority in a particular field and attract high-value prospects to your website. In addition, these valuable content pieces will help you boost brand awareness, drive conversions, and build trust with your target audience.
Implementing these simple tips can transform your average how-to guides into exceptionally useful, high-ranking reads.
Natasha Lane is a lady of a keyboard and one hell of a geek. She is always happy to collaborate with awesome blogs and share her knowledge about branding, digital marketing trends, and business growth strategies. To see what she is up to next, check out her Twitter feed.
Hi Natasha & Tom,
How-to guide articles are informative and educational pieces of content that describe the process of a task from start to completion using step-by-step instructions. And the pointers you have here are practical ways to write how-to guide content. But I also want to add one crucial hack; “pick your topic and point out the objective.” That means choosing a topic that excites the audience you want to attract to your blog or website. If your selected topic is broad, narrow it down to be more specific and focus on a particular audience. For example, instead of writing “how to become a freelancer,” you can write about “how to become a freelance writer.” The goal is to attach aspiring freelance writers to your blog and all freelancers. Then add all the vital components that will make the content epic.
Thank you for sharing, Natasha, and thanks, Tom, for publishing.
Excellent point and great addition Moss, thanks! Focus in marketing is underrated generally, but so vital for success.
Hi Natasha & Tom, I found that the last point about updating the content is very important. So many things change quickly today that your stats have to be updated at least once a year if not more. There is nothing worse than landing on an article that has stats from years ago (and yes, I’m guilty of it from time to time!) It can be hard to do a solopreneur. I love using studies and stats in my posts to show where the info comes from, for my recommendations, thoughts, etc.
I also agree with the industry jargon, you want to keep it as simple as possible! Not everyone is up to speed as you may be in your niche.
Thanks Lisa! I know exactly what you mean. I try to keep up with taking my older stats posts and redirecting them to newer ones, but my staff (which would be me) is time-constrained. Updating is a powerful tactic though for keeping content fresh and relevant.