The Role Product Documentation Can Play in Your Website Experience

Your website isn’t just a tool for attracting and converting new customers; it’s also a critical resource for educating and supporting both prospective and existing users. While marketing pages highlight key features and benefits, your product documentation provides the in-depth information customers need to evaluate, implement, and maximize the value of your product.  

By integrating product documentation directly into your website experience, you empower customers and prospective customers to find answers on their own, reduce reliance on support teams, and build trust in your product. In this blog, we’ll explore how product documentation can enhance your website, improving both customer satisfaction and business efficiency.

Turn Your Website into a Product Knowledge Hub

As you build and update your products, you also create and update documentation that explains what the product is, how it works, and how to use it.  

Make this product documentation available on your website to educate potential and existing customers. You do this in the form of marketing website pages, but also by offering interactive resources such as product guides, user manuals, implementation guides, virtual tours and so on.  

If your technical documentation team is managing product documentation in a component content system (CCMS), they can easily create a publishing process to deliver content to a section (or sections) of your website, keeping the content updated as your product is updated.

This information helps potential customers understand your product and get information on it without needing to speak with sales (and we know that 70% of prospective customers do their research before they speak with your sales team).  

The information can also help existing customers get access to information faster as they use your product. No need to remember logins, just go to the website and find the information they need.  

A couple of examples:

• A software company offers interactive product demos and explainer videos to highlight key features.

• An e-commerce brand provides detailed product specifications and comparison tools to assist decision-making.

You can also include a conversational agent on your website that is trained in all your product documentation and can quickly answer questions about your product.  

Reduce Support Costs with Self-Service Documentation

Many customers don’t want to talk to your support team when they have questions or problems. They like to find the information themselves at a time that works best for them.  

By providing product information on your website, you can reduce support costs and make your customers happy.  

What are some ways to provide product information for support?

• Offer a searchable knowledgebase

• Create a list of common Frequently Asked Questions.

• Include a conversational chatbot or agent on the website.  

You could also provide a conversational interface (like a chatbot) that allows customers to send support tickets to your support team and get near instant responses to common questions. The requests go to a support team when the chatbot is unable to find an answer to the customer’s question or the answer doesn’t help the customer in the way they want.

One of the best examples is a chatbot on a telecom website that troubleshoots connectivity issues before escalating to a live agent.

Another example is A SaaS company implementing a searchable knowledge base to help customers troubleshoot issues without contacting support.

Keep Your Documentation Accurate and Accessible

How do you know if your product documentation is helping? Look at metrics such as time spent on product pages, questions asked of the agent/chatbot, feature adoption rates, documentation downloads (if you provide a PDF version of your documentation), and time spent watching product videos or in a product tour.

Some things to consider as you plan to make your documentation available on your website:

• Structure product pages with clear messaging, feature highlights, and customer testimonials.

• Provide links on the product pages to more detailed documentation to allow visitors to dive deeper.

• Use multimedia (explainer videos, product tours, interactive guides) to enhance understanding.  

• Ensure technical documentation is comprehensive and accessible, and always up to date.  

One of the most frustrating things you can do is provide outdated product content on your website. Not only does it confuse existing customers who are looking for information on using your product, but it gives prospective customers the wrong information that could affect their decision to purchase your product.

If you are using a CCMS to manage your product and technical documentation, you can take advantage of a structured content model to create content once and reuse it across multiple experiences.  

The right CCMS (like Discover CCMS) will also leverage AI capabilities to help with auto-categorization, writing support, and improving SEO.  

Maximizing the Value of Documentation on Your Website

Your website is more than a marketing tool—it’s a powerful platform for delivering value to both prospective and current customers through well-structured documentation. By integrating product education, self-service support, and up-to-date content, you improve user experience, reduce support costs, and strengthen customer confidence in your product.  

Leveraging a CCMS with AI-driven capabilities ensures that documentation remains consistent, relevant, and optimized for searchability. When used effectively, documentation transforms your website into a resource hub that drives both engagement and long-term customer success.