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If you go to your search history right now, you probably have more than a couple questions starting with "how to…" 

And no matter what you want to do—plant a rose garden, bake homemade bread, create an onboarding plan—just like an app, there’s a how-to guide for that.

In fact, there’s even a how-to guide on how to create a how-to guide. That’s where we come in. Because the truth is, not all how-to guides are created equal.

Creating effective how-to guides will help your team complete tasks more efficiently—that’s table stakes. But if you follow a few additional guidelines, you’ll also be able to speed up knowledge transfer at scale, build a culture of documentation, maximize your own personal knowledge management system, contribute to institutional knowledge, and drive operational excellence. 

To make sure your how-to guides hit the mark and make a lasting impact, we’ve rounded up nine steps to create a how-to guide: 

1. Surface key team knowledge gap(s)
2. Understand your target audience
3. Identify processes
4. Create an outline
5. Define actionable steps
6. Add images and examples
7. Include tips and resources
8. Review and publish
9. Distribute and optimize

Let's take it from the top. 

1. Surface your key team knowledge gap(s)

Want to create a how-to guide people will actually use? Find out what’s tripping people up, what’s creating friction, what’s unclear, and what’s unknown.

Using knowledge gaps to inform your documentation may sound like a no-brainer, but it’s an easy step to skip. 

To avoid making assumptions about what people do and don’t know (and need and don’t need!), you may need to take more time upfront. But in the long run, doing a little digging will help you create a more relevant how-to guide.

What you find may surprise you. For example, you may hear different perspectives from managers and individual contributors. A manager may think people need better instructions to complete routine tasks faster. Someone who’s closer to the work may know that half the team has been using an outdated process with missing information.

2. Understand your target audience

Next, you can start identifying who you’re creating your how-to guide for. 

Ask yourself these questions about your target audience to help you better understand how to present the essentials:

• Are my primary users beginners? 
• How much do they already know? 
• What would help them troubleshoot on their own when they get stuck? 

To learn more about your audience, ask everyone what they struggle with and how those challenges impact their day-to-day. From there, you can take a more strategic approach to creating how-to content that directly addresses their pain points.

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3. Identify processes

Now that you’ve surfaced the biggest knowledge gaps and researched your audience, you can kick off content development.

Remember, you're creating a step-by-step guide, which means you’ll need a solid baseline understanding of the process at hand. If you have unaddressed knowledge gaps of your own, your guide probably won’t be super helpful.

To identify the necessary processes to include in your how-to guide:

• Review related how-to guides online to increase your own understanding.
• Talk to people who know the process inside and out and ask them for unique insights that will quickly lead to mastery.
• Ask the team at large for advice about where you can improve the process.

You don't need to be a subject matter expert to create a great how-to guide—though expertise doesn’t hurt—you just need to conduct thorough research.

4. Create an outline

Now it's time to structure your how-to guide content in a logical, easy-to-follow way.

The ideal approach will vary based on your topic and audience. Depending on how complex the topic is and the average level of expertise, you might consider dividing your how-to guide into subsections. 

Create an outline considering how to best present the information to your team, including these sections: 

• Introduction
• Goal
• Step-by-step instructions
• Resources
• Glossary
• Frequently asked questions

Keep in mind that the best how-to guides go beyond simply listing process steps. They also explain why each step in the process matters. By contextualizing each instruction, you'll give users a deeper understanding of your methodology.

5. Define actionable steps

With an outline at the ready, you can start defining key steps for your how-to guide. 

Create actionable instructions that are simple and easy to understand, for each step. Consider these questions:

• What will the reader have to do during this step? 
• Are there additional resources that would be helpful to include? 
• Where can I make important callouts? 

Make sure the language is simple, without unnecessary complexity. If you do need to use jargon, add a glossary of terms so readers will know what you mean. 

Quick tip for when writing a guide: Aim to stay on topic and cover only what's needed to complete the task. At the same time, to avoid confusion—take care not to gloss over necessary context. The best how-to guides give readers exactly what they need to complete each step in a sequence—no more, no less. 

Say you're explaining how to create a report to track your brand’s social media performance. Including a quick definition of the metrics you’re pulling and how to manipulate a graph to tell a more meaningful story makes sense. 👍🏽 What can you safely save for another day (and medium)? An aside on how your company approaches social media monitoring and your philosophy on competitor analysis.

6. Add images and examples

Now onto our favorite part: bringing how-to guides to life with visuals.

No matter how simple a process is, visualizing key steps can make action items infinitely more digestible. One way to do this is with images and examples. Add a screenshot for each step, include images and graphs, and list specific examples and scenarios. 

Say you want to show a team member how to publish a blog post. First add screenshots showing how to launch your content management system (CMS). Then add a few more explaining how to navigate to the correct section of your site, upload content from Google Docs into your CMS, and preview a post before publishing.

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7. Include tips and resources

Want to make it even easier for readers to understand your how-to guide? Sprinkle in suitable tips and resources.

Let's go back to the example of publishing a blog post. If your website tends to crash at will, you may want to include a callout suggesting that they save their posts as they move through the uploading process, instead of waiting until the end. 

Potential tips and resources include: 

• Related how-to guides
• Cheat sheets to streamline processes
• Video walk-throughs 
• Checklists 

If you want to expand on a topic to give more background information, you can also add a section with separate resources or link to more context directly in a step.

8. Review and publish

The next step is to review your guide a couple of times. 

Before publishing your how-to guide, be sure to:

1. Read it aloud to find any grammatical errors or sentences that could flow better. 
2. Follow the steps in the guide and see if you can perform the task yourself. 
3. Send it to someone who doesn't know the process and ask them if they can complete it.
4. Ask teammates for their input. 

This should help ensure it's picture-perfect for publishing on the appropriate platform, whether that’s your team's knowledge base, your blog, or a shared workspace with documentation.

9. Distribute and optimize

Last but not least: you need a plan for distributing and optimizing your how-to guide. The best how-to guide in the world won't benefit anyone if it just collects digital dust, so don’t forget to spread the word!

Once your how-to guide is out in the world, send an email to team members who will benefit most. Give a quick overview of what the guide covers and tell them where they can find it. This is also a chance to thank people who contributed! 🌟

From there, your number one goal should be helping people leverage the new information in their existing workflows.

Try these tips to help your team embrace your how-to guide: 

• Provide adequate training and support.
• Share the benefits of the new or updated process—for them and for your company.
• Explain why it’s important to implement the new process sooner rather than later.
• Lead by example.
• Ask for feedback via email or a form!
• Address any concerns or objections. 
• Realign existing training materials to avoid confusion—and add it to new ones.
• Make the tutorial easy to resurface when it’s needed most.
• Celebrate successes to build momentum and encourage continued adoption.

How-to guide examples

There's a lot of good information here, but what do best-in-class how-to guides actually look like? 

Here are a few of our favorite examples.

The B2B how-to guide

HubSpot's How To Create an Editorial Calendar is an excellent example of a B2B how-to guide.

It includes everything a reader needs to know about how to create a winning editorial calendar, including a definition of what an editorial calendar is.

The post has plenty of images and examples,  and it’s even stocked with multiple free templates, which readers can download and use in their own content marketing efforts.

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The B2C how-to guide

How about a B2C example? This post from Nerd Fitness, How To Get In Shape Quickly and Safely: 4-Step Beginner Guide, caught our attention. 😍

The post is a joy to read, contains interesting and relevant information, and is chock-full of visual content. There are also tons of links readers can follow to access additional information on related topics. What’s the cherry on top? The post is well structured, in an easy-to-follow format.

The product-related how-to guide

When it comes to product-related how-to guides, it doesn't get much better than Stripe.

Take their No-Code Quickstart Guide, for example. It helps Stripe users send invoices and get paid—even if they self-identify as allergic to technology.

What makes this guide so great? First, it has an eye-catching title. Most Stripe customers don't want to waste time coding. They want to collect their money—the sooner, the better. Including the word "quickstart" in the guide’s title was a great call.

The post also contains:

• Simple, clear steps
• Screenshots
• Links to other helpful content

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Best tips and practices for better how-to guides

Once you’ve followed the steps above, these best practices will help take your how-to guide to the next level:

• Keep it simple: Stay on topic, cut out industry jargon, split up steps, or turn a monster how-to guide into multiple how-to guides.
• Add annotations: According to recent Tango research, training guides without annotated screenshots are almost universally disliked. Annotate screenshots, images, and charts to make how-to guides easier to understand and more fun to consume.
• Serve your end user: Create actionable steps and write in an active voice (with a conversational tone!). 
• Get feedback: Keep improving your how-to guide by revisiting it regularly and asking for feedback. 
• Choose the right format: Your how-to guide format matters, so keep ease of use top of mind. For more complex tasks, consider using free software that displays step-by-step instructions in a side-by-side checklist that pops up as people perform a process. (Have we told you about Tango yet? 🙃) 

See our "Guide Me" feature in action below:

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