We’ve invested a lot of effort in ensuring that the writing be helpful, engaging, easy to read on any device, and flexible. This guide helps provide the tools to make composing blog posts and long-form educational content as easy as possible.

Goals

With any of our writing, we have three major goals all with purpose of helping the reader regardless of whether they are or intend to be a customer. From the reader’s point of view, our content should help them do three things:

Learn about issue tracking and how it can improve their work/lives
Feel less intimidated, more in control, and comfortable with issue tracking workflow
Decide if issue tracking software in general, and Sifter specifically, can help their team.

From our point of view as content makers and designers, those points—learn, feel, decide—map to the three primary jobs we need to do:

Learn → Teach We want to educate visitors about issue tracking in human, friendly ways.
Feel → Encourage We want to boost confidence by showing that bug tracking is genuinely easy and helpful as well as help them understand that we’re here to help beyond our writing as well.
Decide → Guide We want to help visitors choose the tools and workflow that are right for them and their team. Even when Sifter isn’t the right tool for them.

Notice that none of those points is “sell.” :) Of course it would be wonderful if everyone wanted to use Sifter, but that’s not realistic. There are too many factors at play for Sifter, or any tool, to be perfect for everyone. We want to help them make the best decision for them, not for us.

Naturally some of our writing will specifically be about Sifter, and that’s alright. However, where possible, we should strive to make the posts educational regardless of whether the reader uses Sifter. For example, a new feature announcement or company news won’t necessarily be educational. However, if we’re writing about the design of a feature, we should treat that as a larger educational opportunity rather than merely an opportunity to teach about Sifter.

Tone/Voice

The primary goal for the tone and style is to write copy that is short, friendly, and genuinely helpful. We want to be informative but not didactic. Opinions are acceptable, but you should never be dogmatic about it.

Focus on them, not us. Keep the focus on the ways in which issue tracking—and Sifter in particular—improve peoples’ work-lives. It’s often important to talk about Sifter and internal decisions, but always lead with what Sifter can accomplish for the reader. When in doubt, always talk about the customer instead of about internal discussions or choices.
Cut to the Chase. Keep introductions very short, especially. A short paragraph or two is plenty of introduction in a brief Learning article. Introduce the idea and get right to the meaty stuff customers can use.
All in the Same Boat. Sifter is a friendly, human company. When teaching, remind readers that you’re a learner, just like them. By briefly referring to the fact that you’ve learned by doing, you can ensure that the Learning articles are relatable and warm, not finger-wagging from on high.
Trim Without Mercy. If two or three sentences are saying the same thing in different ways, cut them down to one. If you can knock three or four words out of a sentence, do it. If there’s a paragraph you can cut without reducing understanding, cut it (and save it as a seed for another article). Don’t worry about this when you’re drafting posts—write as much as you need—but try to cut 20-25% of your word count when you edit. It takes discipline, but the time it saves the readers means they’ll read a lot more of what you have to tell them.

Ultimately, remember that you’re talking to diverse audience in a dizzying array of different scenarios of team size, technology stack, location, etc. We’re presenting our thoughts, but it’s impossible to make them perfect for everyone. So don’t try. Better to write a focused article that helps a small group a lot than a broad article that’s too abstract to help anyone.

Structure & Length

In general, we want to keep blog posts concise. (About 500-800 words.) This does two things. First, it makes the content more digestible and less overwhelming. Second, it helps each post stay focused and on topic. If something needs to be longer, it would likely be better off as a dedicated educational page elsewhere on the site.

Intro, 1-2 short paragraphs: Explain what we are going to teach them and why it matters. That is, explain why they should care.
Meat, 4-6 paragraphs: Include three to four specific ideas with subheads illustrated by screenshots or diagrams as needed.
Takeaway, 1-2 sentences: Provide specific advice on a way that they can save time, reduce errors, or otherwise improve their workflow whether they use Sifter or not.