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John Faber Managing Partner Follow
December 17, 2019

Developer portals need three kinds of great content to succeed. 

  1. API Documentation

  2. Technical Documentation

  3. Marketing Content

Content is being consumed differently now than it was in the past. Dense long-form, bespoke technical communication is going away. Clear, highly visual , easy to read content is taking the lead.  When building a developer portal, content quality and organization needs to be a high priority for your team. .   

API Documentation

Clear API Documentation is a critical component of success.  Your developers rely on this documentation during development.   It needs to be easy to read and understand, and most importantly it needs to be consistent across all your APIs; this consistency starts with good planning upfront. This is content strategy with a particular focus on technical documentation and will result in a writing guide for API docs to help foster usability and readability. Templates and writing guides provide consistency that will increase your developer community’s happiness and productivity.  

Technical Documentation

Technical Documentation is your API program’s supporting content. These include practical use case scenarios, SDK documentation, Frequently Asked Questions, and other technical topic content. Paying attention to the quality of this content is important.  Rambling, bespoke technical documentation will not be consumed by your developer community and will slow the growth of your API acceptance. We help companies develop content governance strategy plans that create a consistent tone, tenor and taxonomy for your technical documentation. Consistent, easy to read, well tagged technical content is a winning combination. 

Marketing Content

Marketing Content. Digital transformation is being powered by APIs; the company API developer portal is becoming the place where these initiatives are being communicated. The ‘customer’ is the developer who comes to your site and consumes your API’s in order to build out new products, services and transactions. Growing adoption of API programs along these channels requires solid marketing material. This content communicates the business value of using your API products and should include all stakeholders in the process as you gather input from across the organization. Work with writers who will create great copy and content to sell your API program. 

The Apigee developer portal is a powerful content management system built using Drupal 8. It is the perfect platform to manage these three types of content.   

Chapter Three is a digital agency that helps organizations develop amazing Apigee developer portal experiences by providing API program strategic planning, content strategy, technical writing, development, training and support.

We look forward to partnering with you.