How to Consistently Produce High-Quality Developer Content

Producing content on any level is a double-edged sword.

On one hand, it can educate and inform readers effectively if done well; on the other hand, it can deter and repel the intended audience if done poorly.

In many cases, poor quality content is not the result of the actual information conveyed, but of inconsistencies in the data presented, issues in formatting, as well as poor structure, editing, and overall style.

The good news is that the production of “bad” content can be avoided through the establishment of simple effective writing and editing guidelines.

As such, the objective of the following guide is to provide a clear set of instructions on how to properly create content and strike a perfect balance between the rules and guidelines outlined in this document and any additional external guidance that you may have from your team and others.

The document is divided into the following components:

• Audience
• Structure
• Style
• Editing

Let’s dive in.

Audience

The audience really matters.

Writing for the correct audience (not yourself) is head and shoulders more important than everything else. Your content plan places a strong emphasis on knowing the intended audience even before the content creation process begins.

Understanding who your audience of specific content is paves the path for everything thereafter, e.g., voice, style, structure etc.

Here are a few considerations you can take into account when considering how to write for your audience:

• Figure out the right tone for your readers. For us, we write in a conversational tone, balanced with business-like language — the objective is to write something easily digestible without being too formal and official. Readers are more inclined to resonate with friendly written content they can consume anywhere and anytime.
• Don’t make assumptions about any prior knowledge or experience of the reader may have — doing this can easily deter the audience.
• Eliminate ‘gate-keeping’, which means not writing content for specific demographics. Instead, ensure that every piece of content you write is accessible and designed for all people, regardless of gender, culture, ethnicity, etc.
• Be helpful — this can sometimes be overlooked when deeply focused on writing about a topic. The end goal is to educate the audience on helping solve a problem, inform them about a new product/feature, and provide insights so they can walk away having learned something.
• What?, So What?, Now What? — write with these questions in mind — what are you writing about (What), why does this matter to the reader (So What) and what actions do you want the reader to take (Now What?)

Structure

While it’s understandable that there will be nuances between each content type, you try to keep a generalized structure around the content you produce.

The following is a structured outline of how you can produce content within both a technical (developer) and product context; be it tutorials, walkthroughs, user guides, comparison pieces, or other content types.

• Main Title
• Introduction
• Prerequisites (optional)
• Topic 1 / Step 1 — Explaining / Doing the First Thing
• Topic 2 / Step 2 — Explaining / Doing the Next Thing
• …
• Topic n / Step n — Explaining / Doing the Last Thing
• Conclusion

Main Title

This is the primary hook that will either attract or repel a reader. Focus on titles that help solve a problem, provide insights into a particular area, or educate potential readers about particular topics, technologies, and products.

For brevity, we recommend titles of within one hundred characters.

Introduction

Usually, this is where the content needs to be clear on what its objectives are and the benefits it can provide to the reader. This section should be around 1–2 paragraphs long.

Provide a description of:

• What is the piece going to be about
• Why this topic is important to the reader (what pain points it solves etc.)
• What will the reader learn, do, or create from reading this piece
• What will the reader have achieved and/or learned after consuming the content

Prerequisites (optional)

Certain prerequisite knowledge may be added as a disclaimer if the content requires specific expertise, or if the reader needs to first read another related article to get up to speed. This is usually the case for tutorial guides and application notes where the content is focused on building something as the intended goal.

Body

This is where the crux of the information resides.

We encourage that the body be broken into respective topics if possible — this provides clear breaks and sections so that the reader can digest and process the content before moving to the next topic.

• Diagrams/images — this includes architecture diagrams, product screenshots, etc. Feel free to add such images where appropriate in line with the content. In doing so, you can expect that all artifacts to be captioned. All images should be of original work and/or sourced from a free stock website i.e. Unsplash etc.
• References — all information referenced from third-parties should be accurately cited and justified for its inclusion in the piece. Usually such references are included to back up and reinforce an opinion/point of view.

Conclusion

The conclusion wraps everything up, reinforces the title and objective of the content, and reminds the reader of what they set out to achieve.

A few more add-ons can also be included in the Conclusion:

• Call To Action (CTA) to the reader — this action needs to be discussed with our clients for alignment. In many cases, this might include booking a call with the team, starting a free trial etc.
• Related articles — to keep the reader engaged, we highly recommend you provide links to other pieces that might be of interest. This creates stickiness with the reader and forces them to continue to consume articles from the client.

Style

As experts in technical content marketing, we pride ourselves in ensuring that we deliver content of the highest quality. This means we need to ensure that it achieves one primary objective — delivering value to our stakeholders i.e. clients, community of readers, customers etc.

For this reason, in producing content, we suggest you adhere to a style guide that can be applied to a wide range of content types.

Experience Level

The content has to align with the experience level of the reader. In many cases, it might be geared towards general audiences with varying levels of experience (i.e. beginners to experts), which means that care must be taken in conveying information that doesn’t preclude certain readers from understanding the material.

In other cases, the intent will be to write for specific audiences e.g., senior developers, and engineers. This is where prerequisite knowledge may be required and stated at the beginning of the piece.

Detailed

Being detailed means being comprehensive in every aspect and ensuring that the content is providing the right amount of information — not too little that the readers would need to search for more supplementary information, and not too much that they’re being overwhelmed with superfluous content.

Generally, both the writing and editing process are designed to ensure that there are no missing gaps and elements — such as diagrams, animations, code snippets, etc. — are all explained thoroughly. We also encourage you to validate content that involves application code to correct guarantee functionality.

Educational

Making sure that the readers can walk away having learned something, gained insight into an area, or even built something is our top priority.

Having this as our north star allows the entire team to focus entirely on our goal — creating content of value.

Editing

Whether done by the writer of the piece himself or by an editor in the team, the editing process is the final and most crucial piece of our content creation pipeline. It is what ultimately decides if the content goes to production or needs to be further reviewed and amended.

At Argon Labs, we work with a team of editors that ensure both the quality and accuracy of each piece we produce.

Our editors are trained in written communication but also have experience and expertise in dealing with technical and complex subject matters.

Our editing process is broken down into five key areas:

1. The High-Level Review

A high-level review takes place immediately after the writer has completed the piece. This is where the technical principal and/or editor reviews the content for general accuracy and checks if it aligns with the agreed content plan.

This step quickly captures any discrepancies — including any major inconsistencies, errors, or inaccuracies — that can be quickly sent back to the writer for amendment. At this stage, editors are also on the lookout for general oversights where the content is not addressing the topic or simply not providing enough depth and substance to make it valuable to the intended audience.

Another reason for performing this step directly after the initial production of the content is because the piece will still be fresh in the writers’ minds, allowing them to make updates quickly.

2. The Developmental Edit

The next step goes another level deeper. This is where the editor scrutinizes the style and structure of the content e.g. composition, and sentence flow.

Again, the target audience is considered and the content is reviewed to verify that it aligns with the reader and provides information of value. This is why we put a strong emphasis on the audience right from the beginning.

3. The Writer Review

At this point, the editor hands the content back to the writer to tidy up and make any changes required from the developmental edit phase.

This is also an opportunity for the writer to perform another full content review — conducting a complete walkthrough, checking if all references are justified, and confirming if all instructions (tutorials), including code snippets, are working and functional.

4. The Content Editor Review

This is where the content editor comes into their own. Their focus here is to not only to identify and fix errors in punctuation, grammar and vocabulary but to also be on the lookout for formatting issues in components such as headers and anchor links.

5. The Client Review

This is the final piece of the puzzle and the penultimate stage before production.

Once the content has gone through our rigorous internal review and editing process, it’s ready for members from the client side to examine and sign off. Ideally, by the time it reaches this stage, the content would require no drastic edits but slight tweaks and supplements (e.g., CTAs and links to other related articles).

We take pride in the quality of our work and processes, this guideline is a public-facing document. It is shared with Argon Labs’ entire team of writers, editors, and technical content principals, as well as with the clients (i.e., product managers, marketing teams, and general decision-makers), ensuring that all parties are on the same page and understand the expectations of quality and consistency.

Argon Labs is a specialized team that works with subject matter experts to help you ​produce world-class technical content that is easy ​to understand and digestible to help educate, ​inform your audience, and stand out from the rest. We partner with global early-stage to growth-stage ​companies to help advise and build their technical ​marketing programs.