Log in     Support     Status

How to Organize a Knowledge Base (A Complete Guide)

by | Sep 6, 2024

If you’re trying to figure out how to organize a knowledge base, you’ve come to the right place! A knowledge base is an invaluable asset for customer success teams and customers. By organizing your knowledge base in a structured, easy-to-navigate manner, you can ensure that your customers get the information they need quickly and efficiently.

When organizing your knowledge base, there are several things you should keep in mind: structure, content categories and topics, keywords and searchability, automation tools, and analytics. With these aspects in mind, let’s dive into our complete guide to organizing a knowledge base!

What is the best way to structure a knowledge base?

Once you’ve composed the content for your articles and arranged them in a template, it’s time to organize your knowledge base at the top level. Remember that reader convenience should be paramount during this step – prioritize accordingly!

Embrace the opportunity to continually evaluate how you can supply your readers with the best service and apply that towards shaping your knowledge base strategy. Additionally, businesses should consider other core guidelines for further success.

Depending on your product and how customers employ it, you can organize your top-level folders in several ways. To get you going, consider these options:

  • Feature: If you’re an AI automation company, you may have one folder for RPA workflows and another for basic task automation.
  • User type or role: Accounts can be organized with one folder explicitly designated for administrators, while another is tailored to primary users.
  • Activity: If you’re an EdTech company, you could have one section for your LMS and another for assessments or student data.
  • User journey: One area of your knowledge base may be for onboarding and another for established customers. How do you categorize knowledge base?

Organizing your information makes it easier for customers to find what they need. They won’t be as frustrated when looking for help. It also helps customer teams give the correct answers.

Image showing ways to organize a knowledge base.

6 ways to organize a knowledge base

Here are a few tips on how to effectively manage your knowledge base:

Create a hierarchy: When organizing your knowledge base, it’s important to establish a clear order that reflects the structure of your business. This should include categories, subsections, and topics that will make navigation easier for customers.

Label and tag: Labeling is essential in managing a knowledge base as it allows you to easily categorize information so readers can quickly find what they need. Designing a practical labeling system is key. Use labels that make sense and ensure they accurately describe each type of content.

Incorporate automation: Automation is one of the most important aspects of any knowledge base. It saves you time responding to customers’ queries by providing them with the answers they need quickly and accurately. Leverage AI and automation tools such as natural language processing (NLP) to help automate repetitive tasks and improve customer experience.

Create a logical taxonomy: To make your knowledge base easily navigable, it’s crucial to create a logical taxonomy structure that allows readers to find the information they need quickly. Structure your knowledge base into several categories with subcategories, then classify it by topics.

Track feedback: The key to understanding how customers interact with your knowledge base is tracking the data and using analytics tools. Regularly check for user behavior, analyze customer feedback, and use this data to improve your knowledge base organization over time.

Make it SEO-friendly: SEO is essential to ensure higher search visibility and ranking in search engines. Incorporate relevant keywords, and optimize your titles, meta descriptions, and URLs. This will help customers find the content they need faster.

By following these tips and tricks for knowledge base organization, you can create a practical knowledge base your customers will love!

What should you include in a knowledge base?

Depending on your business model and what you want to accomplish, you may include different information in your knowledge base. Here are a few questions to may consider when conceptualizing your knowledge base:

  • Are you designing your knowledge base for internal or external use?
  • Do you want your knowledge base relevant to your customers and anyone looking to work in your field? 
  • Do you want your documentation to be used by humans or crawled by machines?
Image showing what you should include in a knowledge base.

No matter who you are trying to reach with your content, there are usually a few different types of documentation that go well with knowledge bases:

  • Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
  • Lists and step-by-step instructions
  • “Getting started” articles
  • Videos and webinars
  • Glossaries and definition lists

Your knowledge base should include a balance of these things, pending the engagement you see from your customers. If you notice that the people using your docs regularly rank one form of content over another, it may be worth considering using that type of content more frequently than others.

Build your knowledge base with Capacity

An organized knowledge base is essential for customers and customer success teams. Following the tips in this guide, you can create a structured, easy-to-navigate knowledge base tailored to your product and quickly provide customers with the answers they need. Platforms such as Capacity can help transform how your team handles knowledge management.

You may be wondering – What is Capacity?

Ultimately, Capacity is an AI-powered automation platform that helps customer success teams manage their operations efficiently and build a best-in-class customer experience. Through its all-in-one automation suite, Capacity simplifies multiple complex tasks – from onboarding to data management – and allows customer success teams to manage their customer service operations faster.

Capacity’s Knowledge Base solution is a comprehensive product for managing structured knowledge bases. It allows you to easily organize your articles and build an intuitive information hub that customers can refer to. With Capacity’s AI-powered knowledge base, businesses can easily create an automated FAQ section that responds to customers within seconds.

As a result, companies can reduce the time it takes to answer customer inquiries by over 90%, leading to greater customer satisfaction. This AI-driven technology can help businesses save time and resources while providing fast, accurate customer responses.

Not sure where to start with AI?

Practical AI: The Capacity for Good, Episode 10

Listen and Subscribe Here In this episode of Practical AI: The Capacity for Good, David Avrin, a Customer Experience Keynote Speaker and Consultant, joins James Diel to reveal the importance of customer retention and how it impacts a company's revenue. They highlight...

Practical AI: The Capacity for Good, Episode 9

Listen and Subscribe Here In this episode of Practical AI: The Capacity for Good, Adrian Swinscoe, an Aspirant Punk at Punk CX, joins James Diel to share his insights on how you can tap into your inner punk spirit to revolutionize your approach to customer experience,...

Practical AI: The Capacity for Good, Episode 8

Listen and Subscribe Here In this episode of Practical AI: The Capacity for Good, David Karandish, Founder and CEO of Capacity, joins James Diel to unveil how AI and automation revolutionize customer service, balancing customer experience and profitability in AI...