While there are many different struggles to increase deflection while still providing the best documentation you possibly can, sometimes it can be hard to just find content. It’s that hard balance of finding additional content while still making sure it’s useful, and it’s no question that identifying articles to genuinely address user needs is becoming increasingly important.
If this sounds all too familiar, please know you’re not alone and it is something even the best of teams can struggle with. Luckily, Kustomer has tools to help you find that next needed article for your Knowledge Base.
Where to start?
Within your Kustomer instance, you should be able to find the data we will be looking at via Reporting → Standard Reports → Knowledge Base. It is also important to note some of this analysis may only be applicable for established Knowledge Bases with data already in place, although it will still be helpful as your KB grows in size.
View Count and View Change
View count is an important metric showing how much an article has been viewed by users over a given time. A high view count will suggest that your article is popular and might be addressing an issue with high interest. However, it’s also essential to consider view change, as this metric tracks the increase or decrease in views over a time period. Consistent growth or a steady amount of high views should indicate that the article’s content isn’t just popular, but remains relevant based on your platform needs.
Top Considerations for View Count and View Change:
-
Compare view counts on your articles to identify high-performing content.
-
Track changes in views over time to spot trending topics, stale articles if viewership drops, or evergreen (long lasting) content that could be added to.
-
Take into account other metrics with this, if an article has unreasonably high viewership, perhaps it’s a pain point, or maybe the title is misleading (clickbait) on what it is addressing.
Rating and Article Feedback
User ratings and feedback gives you valuable insight into the quality and relevance of your articles. A positive rating indicates that the content is meeting reader’s expectations, while negative feedback should signal the need for content improvements. It’s also important to take into account the feedback received, if it didn’t answer the question, was hard to follow, or was out of date, make those your top priority for new articles or restructuring.
This data can be seen directly from
the Feedback section of your articles
Top Considerations for Rating and Article Feedback:
-
Regularly monitor your article’s ratings and feedback, this helps gauge user satisfaction of the support resources provided, and helps quickly identify areas for improvement.
-
If possible, encourage users to provide feedback so that you can collect more data points.
-
Make sure to keep track of trends in your feedback. That way you can identify recurring themes and issues to make informed decisions on future content creation.
Search Term, Count, and Click Through Rate
Understanding the search terms driving users to your articles can provide valuable insight into your reader’s needs and preferences. By analyzing search term frequency and CTR (click through rate), you can identify topics that resonate with users and potentially create more targeted content.
Top Considerations for Search Term, Count and Click Through Rate:
-
Identify highly searched terms, and make articles targeting those keywords.
-
Identify low searched terms. This can be a bit harder to use, but it allows you to fix poor keyword optimization, or even identify content gaps.
-
Take a look at the search counts of items and the Articles Clicked hand in hand, if something has a high search volume, but a low CTR compared to other search terms, you might have identified a keyword problem or the need for additional articles.
No Articles Found
When looking at the search query filter of ‘No Articles Found, you’ll find topics a user searched for but didn’t receive any valid results. It's a strong indication that you have a content gap and an easy go-to when looking for possible content to create. Watching for these instances where no articles are found based on a search query can help identify emerging topics and even unaddressed issues or user needs.
Top Considerations for No Articles Found:
-
This should be one of the most reviewed queries to identify content creation opportunities.
-
The higher the search count, it is likely the higher that the need for that article is.
-
Watch for searches on terms that you already have content for, but are phrased differently. It might be that you need to adjust keywords in already existing articles to catch these search outliers.
Article Comments
In addition to leaving feedback with prompts, users can leave a comment on why they are giving the feedback they have. This can provide you with invaluable direct feedback on article content, clarity and relevance. Keeping an eye on this section of the Knowledge Base reporting dashboard can indicate a stronger sense of user sentiment, unanswered questions, or confusion that numbers might be missing.
Top Considerations for Article Comments:
-
Just like with the feedback prompts, encouraging the use of this is a great step toward getting more data points.
-
Take a look at the comment sentiment to gauge overall satisfaction with your content. Articles with feedback that a small piece of information is missing are easy wins on content improvement.
-
Address user concerns, confusion and questions as quickly as possible through content updates to drive higher engagement. When a community feels their feedback is being heard it encourages further use and feedback.
Additional Considerations
It’s no question that finding information is hard in today’s content-saturated digital landscape. This makes it even more crucial to identify and create articles that cater to the needs of your target audience. By focusing on key metrics such as view count, view change, ratings, feedback, search terms, and so on, you can gain valuable insights into user preferences and behavior. This data-drive approach allows you to create content that resonates with your readers, and ensure that your content strategy remains responsive and even proactive to their needs and preferences.
It is important to continually monitor and analyze these metrics to identify content gaps, emerging trends, and areas of improvement for better deflection rates from your support team, and an all around strong information center for your users and readers. Continuing this over the long term can maximize the value of your content offering to create a strong, engaging, and satisfying reader experience.