How to create a Knowledge Base in 5 minutes using AI

Introduction

Knowledge bases. Wikis. Company encyclopedias.

Organisations have many names for centralized stores of information to help employees work smarter. But creating one can seem daunting. Where do you start? What technology is best?

You conjure up images of months spent building a complex system. Engineers slaving away after hours to craft the perfect taxonomy. An empty shell launched to a confused user base. But it doesn’t have to be that hard.

You can build a surprisingly robust knowledge base in just days or weeks.

Scratch that.

You can start building a Knowledge Base in minutes using our Wiki Generator, all for free. Selecting the right knowledge base solution is crucial for effective information organization and collaboration within teams. A well-maintained knowledge base can significantly enhance customer support by providing valuable resources that address customer needs.

And if you’re not a Slite user, we’ve also mentioned the standard guide so you can start your Knowledge Base wherever you need. So let’s begin?

What is a Knowledge Base?

A knowledge base is a centralized repository of information designed to store, organize, and manage content on a specific subject or topic. Think of it as a one-stop shop where customers can find answers to their questions without needing to contact the support team. Unlike a simple FAQ page, a knowledge base typically includes a search bar, menu navigation, and multiple content categories, making it a comprehensive resource for users. Knowledge bases are often built using dedicated knowledge base software, which provides all the necessary features to create a user-friendly and accessible knowledge base website.

Benefits of a Knowledge Base

Implementing a knowledge base can significantly enhance productivity and customer satisfaction. For employees, it provides easy access to essential information, streamlining workflows and reducing the time spent searching for answers. For the customer support team, a knowledge base automates repetitive queries, allowing them to focus on more complex issues. Customers benefit from instant access to information, leading to higher satisfaction levels as they can resolve issues on their own. Additionally, a knowledge base serves as a valuable resource for onboarding new employees, offering them a ready-made guide to understand company operations. By making information available 24/7, a knowledge base ensures continuous support, regardless of time zones or business hours.

Method #1: The fastest (and the easiest) way to build your wiki

Slite's free Wiki Generator creates your knowledge base in minutes. Just answer a few questions about your goals. Click "Generate my wiki". Boom. An elegant neatly structured wiki tailored to your needs.

The generator handles all the technical complexity behind the scenes. You get a flexible structure with intuitive permissions. Moreover, knowledge management is a breeze with Slite. You can assign authors, verification statuses, and check all doc analytics from a dedicated dashboard.

With your basic wiki formed, it's then easy to start adding content. No more messing around just to get started.

Here's how to use our Wiki Generator, and then import your existing content:

Step-by-step Guide

1. Navigate to https://slite.com/micro-apps/wiki-generator/

2. Choose one of the 2 options of “Company wiki” or “Team wiki” depending on your objectives. Quick FYI, some text

a. Company wiki: A wiki about your company to be used by your customers for documentation, FAQs, etc.

b. Team wiki: A wiki documenting internal company discussions and SOPs

You'll be redirected to this page where Slite AI will ask you questions to generate a directory and a cascading wiki structure that can be easily used for navigating across docs by your team.

3. Give your company details about what your product and objective is. Here, for example, we have taken ProductHunt:
“company name is product hunt specialising in helping tech enthusiasts discover new SaaS tools and software”

4. Give your company details about what your product and objective is. Here, for example, we have taken ProductHunt:
“company name is product hunt specialising in helping tech enthusiasts discover new SaaS tools and software”

5. Define subcategories for your company. This has to be focused around the key questions that people are asking. In this example, we will be typing “All” to agree with all of Slite AI's suggestions.

6. As you can see, Slite AI has automatically generated 3 big categories and their structure on the right side in real-time. Then, you have define subcategories with Slite AI.

7. Like we see here, all the subcategories magically appear under the right folders:

8. You can keep prompting Slite AI in specific ways to define as many categories as you need. Once you're done, click on “Edit in Slite”.

9. You will be redirected to create an account. Here, you can sign up with Google or Slack to immediately log into your newly created wiki.

10. After signing up successfully, you'll be redirected and see this pop-up!

11. Answer a few questions to set up your account and start populating your wiki with content.

12. To import all your existing information and loose docs, select the app that houses the most team documentation for an easy import.

You're all set!

Once you have a workspace with docs imported from your current Google Drive or Notion, you can start using our verification feature to verify docs as trusted sources of truth for your team after finishing them. You can also install Slite's Slack bot to get instant answers from all your wiki content directly on Slack or any other source!

Method #2: Create a knowledge base manually

Step 1 - Define the Purpose

First, clearly define the vision and purpose for your knowledge base content.

• Who is the target audience? Be specific - different teams have different needs. Technical writers? Support agents? Engineers? Executives?
• What problems will the KB solve? Reduce tribal knowledge by documenting practices? Quick access to product info? Self-service for customers?
• What content and structure is needed? Technical reference? Troubleshooting guides? FAQs? Company policies?
• Who will own creating and managing content? Appointing editors and admins helps.
• How will you drive adoption? Promotion plan? Training sessions? Make using the KB part of standard workflows?

Take time on this step. A fuzzy purpose leads to a disorganized KB that lacks buyer-in. Get concrete on goals and owners early.

Step 2 - Map Detailed Use Cases

Next, map detailed use cases to address. Go beyond general topics to specific situations the KB should help with.

For example, don't just say "Troubleshooting." Get granular with use cases like:

• Fixing error R014 when building iOS app
• Debugging slow database queries
• Correcting pixelated images in Android app
• Resolving checkout crashing issues
• List every concrete use case you can imagine. They will guide what content you create. Prioritize by importance and urgency.

Step 3 - Choose the Right Knowledge Base Software

Now choose the right knowledge base software that enables your high-priority use cases, fits abilities of contributors, and has an easy editing experience.

Assess options on these criteria:

• Functionality for technical documentation, internal wikis, public knowledge bases
• Ability to organize and search content
• Built-in templating for consistent structure
• Permissions and access controls
• Integration with existing tools like chat, docs, etc.
• Multi-language should be a non-negotiable, especially in case you have a distributed team
• Ability to publish customer-facing docs (a lot of apps help with indexing on search engines indexing options too!)
• Options for embedding media like images, video, wireframes, sketches, etc.
• Mobile experience for accessing content on-the-go
• Ability to reuse content across knowledge base and external docs
• Customizable look and feel to match branding
• Pricing in line with your budget
• Customer support - Your team may need help with onboarding. Most knowledge base platforms offer a subpar customer experience which is you should be careful about this

Select software that makes it as frictionless as possible for subject matter experts to contribute content. Complex tools with steep learning curves are adoption killers. One of the biggest reasons companies switch to Slite is because of the simplicity and intuitiveness of the app. Pick a tool that can get your team up and running in no time. And if you need help comparing the best KBs, go here.

Step 4 - Create Content Categories

With your goals clear and software ready, it’s time to start populating your knowledge base articles using knowledge base tools.

First, build out a structure of categories and subcategories to organize information. Align categories to the use cases you mapped out earlier.

For example, a customer support wiki might have categories like:

• Getting Started
• Using Product X
• Features
• Tutorials
• Troubleshooting
• Error Codes
• FAQs
• How To
• Resources
• Downloadables
• Videos

Categorise your content in a relatively flat structure, and keep hierarchies to a minimum. Too many nested subcategories creates confusion. You can always add more later. Prioritize creating 1-2 levels of categories to start. This establishes the basic structure while still allowing flexibility as you learn more about user needs.

P.S. While working, you’ll naturally start looking for templates for everyday work. If you’d like access to ready-to-use 100+ templates, click here and get them right now.

Step 4 - Write Useful Knowledge Base Articles

Now start writing articles within each category. Focus on addressing the specific use cases identified earlier.

For example, the "Using Product X" category could have articles on:

• Getting started with Product X
• Step-by-step tutorial for Process Y
• How to customize settings
• Keyboard shortcuts for Product X

The goal is tightly-focused articles that help users complete tasks. Break up long procedural topics into multiple articles if needed. Use clear, concise writing and appropriate headings to break down big concepts into smaller chunks of information. Include screenshots, images and multimedia to support text instructions. Links to related articles connect information. Not to mention, having easy-to-read articles phenomenally reduces your customer support team's workload since most customers today like to self serve anyway.

Make content easily scannable with descriptive headers and bulleted lists. Stick to standard docs formatting for consistency. Start small with core topics, then flesh out over time. Let your team's feedback guide you about what to expand on.

Develop a Content Strategy

Creating a knowledge base without a solid content strategy is like building a house without a blueprint. Start by identifying the key topics your knowledge base should cover, such as product information, troubleshooting guides, and how-to instructions. Gather information from various sources, including customer support tickets, sales and marketing teams, and subject matter experts. Once you have a list of topics, assign subject matter experts to create the content. Consistency is crucial, so use a uniform structure and naming convention to make it easy for users to find related information. A well-thought-out content strategy ensures your knowledge base remains organized and user-friendly.

Step 5 - Launch and Iterate

Ask questions like:

• Is content meeting your needs? If not, what's missing?
• Does the structure and navigation make sense?
• Are there any pain points in accessing or finding content?
• How can the knowledge base better support your workflows?
• Be ready to iterate based on feedback. Add missing content, improve findability, fix pain points. Don't be afraid to rework the taxonomy if needed.

As quality improves, roll out the KB to wider groups of users. Promote it through internal newsletters, town halls, team meetings. Highlight it as the go-to resource. Drive adoption by making the knowledge base an integrated part of daily workflows.

For example:

• Link to related KB articles from project docs
• Standardize on sharing KB links vs. emailing docs
• Add "Help Center" widget to internal tools that searches articles
• Prompt support reps to check KB before escalating tickets

The key to a knowledge base that gets used, is consistently reinforcing the knowledge base as the reliable source of truth.

Especially when it comes to external user wikis, customer satisfaction is crucial. If you make your knowledge base easy to access, your helpdesk will be a lot less crowded.

Maintain Momentum

Launching your knowledge base is a big accomplishment. But the real work starts now in keeping it current and valuable over time.

Here are tips for maintaining KB momentum:

1. Make it someone's dedicated role to own the knowledge base. Appoint a Knowledge Manager and help them set contributors and looop in everyone.
2. Establish processes for handling content requests and submissions. Document your workflow for creating, reviewing, and publishing articles.
3. Share usage metrics in dashboards to showcase ROI and gain executive support. Numbers motivate. To understand more about that, learn how to you can drive insights to fix your Knowledge Base here.
4. Automate reminders to review and refresh old articles. The best hack to do this, is to verify your docs till a certain date. This way, even if you don't find the time to update them later, your Knowledge Management Panel will file it and keep it for you whenever you have time.

Design and Implementation

Designing and implementing a knowledge base requires meticulous planning. Begin by determining the primary purpose of your knowledge base—whether it’s intended for customers, employees, or both. Identify the current gaps in knowledge that necessitate the creation of a knowledge base. Consider the topics you need to cover, such as product information, troubleshooting guides, and how-to instructions. Using dedicated knowledge base software can simplify the process, providing you with the tools needed to create a comprehensive and user-friendly knowledge base website. Proper planning ensures that your knowledge base effectively meets the needs of its users.

Design for User Experience

User experience is paramount when designing a knowledge base. Ensure your knowledge base includes a clear and concise search function, a user-friendly interface, and a robust content management system. Consistency in structure and naming conventions makes it easier for users to find related information. Utilize analytics to identify content gaps and create new articles to fill those voids. A well-organized knowledge base structure enhances navigation, allowing users to quickly locate the information they need. By prioritizing user experience, you create a knowledge base that is not only functional but also enjoyable to use.

Knowledge Base Examples

Here's 2 great examples of great knowledge bases for beginners:

Dropbox

They've masterfully compiled an extensive suite of resources for both new and existing users. This includes troubleshooting guides, answers to frequently asked questions, and even interactive elements to streamline finding solutions.

Why highlight Dropbox?

It's simple.

They don't just offer straight-to-the-point troubleshooting; they've integrated automated systems to swiftly guide users to effective solutions, showcased through an exemplary knowledge base article.

Dropbox's knowledge base is a treasure trove of user support. It features an intuitive search bar, real-time troubleshooting, direct support team contact, and detailed tutorials. Their homepage is a model of clarity, providing immediate access to practical use cases, instructional videos, and efficient workflows. In terms of functionality and user-friendliness,

Dropbox stands as a prime example of excellence in knowledge base design.

LiveChat Help Center

LiveChat brings an easy-to-use customer service tool for businesses of all types. Their knowledge base is packed with easy guides for everyone – whether you're an agent, a manager, a sales rep, or a top boss. It makes finding information a breeze, helping everyone get things done faster and better.

With LiveChat's knowledge base, you get the lowdown on everything. It walks you through setting up LiveChat, using it like a pro, and even hooking it up with other apps. Plus, it's full of tips on keeping things running smoothly and safely. It's all about making complex stuff simple and accessible for everyone.

Moreover, their knowledge base has great SEO. Their customers often find the article they need just through a direct google search of their common issues. This massively reduces their support tickets with time.

To look at more examples, check out our collection of the best knowledge bases to inspire you, here.

Need more help? We get it.

Building a knowledge base from scratch is hard work. But once up and running, it can save your team hours of repetitive questions and meetings each week.

Slite is a frictionless knowledge base that anyone on your team can use. It has AI-powered search to find answers in seconds. An intelligent editor makes writing and formatting easy. You can connect Slite to your existing tools and workflows. Even use our Chrome extension to access your company knowledge anywhere.

We've helped thousands of companies cut down on Slack debates, redundant emails, and constant pinging by getting their wiki set up right.

If your growing team needs a designated "source of truth" to eliminate rounds of back-and-forth, book a demo with us. See how Slite can solve your specific knowledge sharing needs with a flexible and user-friendly wiki.

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