Are you new to blogging and finding it hard to attract visitors to your site? Are you constantly thinking, “what content should I write for my readers”? In the second part of our “Killer Content” series, we will be examining the tutorial post.

QUICK TIPS

Tutorials are incredibly popular on social news and bookmark sites and also a great way to build authority and gain incoming links.Here are a few pointers to help you write a tutorial guide:

Keep jargon to a minimum
It’s likely that if you’re writing a tutorial the person reading it won’t have as much experience as you. Keep the jargon and technical talk to a minimum. If technical words are necessary to explain a concept then link to a glossary. It is difficult to create a good tutorial if your readers do not understand the basics of what you are writing about.

Give concise instructions
You need to give clear and detailed instructions. One way to do this is to break each part down into steps. This is why formatting your post is so important. You want your readers to be able to quickly scan to the various sections in a tutorial so they can easily see where they last left off.

Show enthusiasm for your subject
It is important to show enthusiasm in your writing. This motivates your readers to learn, which is exactly the purpose of your tutorial. You’ll find that readers who learn something from your website will usually return.

Encourage your readers to think
The best teachers encourage their students to think rather than just lecture at them. The same idea applies with creating tutorials. You should break up your tutorial with ways to encourage your readers to think for themselves. Why not ask them questions and explain the answer?

Clear target audience
It is important to signpost what level your target audience should be at within the first couple of paragraphs. Provide your readers with requirements for the tutorial and inform them of progress they will make. It is important to be very clear on this as readers will not benefit from your tutorial if they are reading the wrong one!

Follow your own tutorial to the letter
You might think that you already know what you’re talking about, so what is the point in following your own tutorial? Try examining your tutorial from a beginner’s perspective. They will probably copy you down to the letter, so go through your tutorial and do everything exactly as you’ve written it. This will help you pick up any mistakes and make life a lot easier for your readers.

Use images or video
Where possible, try to use images or video to explain concepts in further detail. It’s much easier for readers to understand a tutorial if there are visual examples.

There are free programs that allow you to take screen captures. You can annotate your screen captures with free online image editing tools.

You can also try creating a tutorial video using screencasting software. Once you have recorded your tutorial video you can then submit to video sites, such as, Youtube and Metacafe. Watermark your video so that your sites URL is visible. It’s important to watermark your video because even if your tutorial is embedded on another site, users will be able to see who made the video.

PROS

Use existing knowledge
Creating “how to” tutorials allows you to leverage your existing knowledge of your particular field. You can simply tap into your own experience and provide the information you would’ve helped you when you first started out.

Build Authority
When you write a tutorial guide you become an expert in the mind of the reader. If a reader trusts your judgement they they’re far more likely to return to your site or link to it in the future.

Helps your reader learn something new
“How to” guides and tutorials are still successful because people like to learn. Tutorial guides can provide your readers with valuable information that will save them time.

Will visit the page more than once
If you provide your readers with an in-depth tutorial then they are likely to bookmark your page to return to at a later date. The more a reader visits your blog, the greater the chance of turning that casual reader into a regular subscriber or getting them to purchase your product or services.

CONS

Could be time consuming
Depending on the subject, it might take some time to create an interesting tutorial. This is especially true if you’re creating a video tutorial.

You really need to know your subject
Don’t try to fool your audience by creating a tutorial on something you know little about. It might seem obvious, but you need to give your audience the benefit of your own wisdom. Once again, try following your own tutorial to see if you deliver what you promised.

SOCIAL NEWS AND SOCIAL BOOKMARK SITES: WHICH COMMUNITIES LIKE TUTORIALS?

Over the last few months we have been monitoring what content is generally popular on the major social news and social bookmark sites.

Generally, tips on how to use computer programs (Photoshop, Dreamweaver etc..) or programming/web languages (JAVA, CSS etc..) are popular on most social news and bookmark
sites.

From what we found, the following sites are where you’ll have the best chance of a list post reaching the popular pages (listed from most likely to least likely):

1. Del.icio.us
2. StumbleUpon
3. Digg
4. Mixx
5. Propeller
6. Reddit

We hope you enjoyed this post. If you have any suggestions on how to create a better tutorial then please leave your comments below. Don’t forget to sign-up to our RSS feed so you don’t miss out on any of the other posts in this series.