We’re Hiring A Technical Document Specialist
Written by Kyle Pearce on July 13, 2010
About Our Company
SmarttNet is a well established, successful and growing Internet Service Provider with a skilled and dedicated team of creative and technical professionals. We provide co-location, connectivity, online marketing and web development services to clients across Canada and the United States.
As a result of our growth, we are looking for a dedicated and energetic Technical Document Specialist to join our team and provide comprehensive technical document writing skills.
Position Overview
The Technical Document Specialist will be reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer and is responsible for the writing and editing of technical documentation for SmarttNet’s services, products, internal company processes and user manuals. The successful candidate must be able to organize and translate ideas from technical and non-technical sources into well presented and designed technical documents which are created for a variety of audiences.
Core Responsibilities
- Develop and maintain product and service summaries and descriptions
- Develop and maintain installation, configuration, how-to documentation and online help sources for both customers and employees
- Develop and maintain sales and support templates for automated client responses
- Develop and integrate technical illustrations into various documentation
- Develop and maintain product and service white papers for partner and client audiences
- Develop and maintain procedural documents and guides for internal use
- Assist in developing SRS documentation
Secondary Responsibilities
- Review published materials and recommend revisions or changes in scope, format, content, methods of reproduction and binding
- Arrange for typing, duplication and distribution of materials where necessary
- Assist in laying out of material for publication
- Observe service and product development by fellow team members to determine operating procedures and other details for document creation
- Interview development, engineering, marketing and support staff to become familiar with products and services for the creation of technical documentation
- Communicate with clients and partners to help improve documentation and publications
- Create standardized templates to facilitate client, staff and technical writer documentation creation initiatives
- Follow company reporting requirements and provide updates to immediate supervisor on a daily and weekly basis
- Provide assessments and suggestions for improvement of current technical document creation and management
- Perform other duties as required
Job Requirements
- Minimum of 2 years experience in a technical writing role
- Bachelor degree in Journalism, English OR certificate in Technical Writing
- Advanced computer skills in publishing and authorship software including Microsoft Word, Acrobat Pro, Illustrator, and FrameMaker
- Proven knowledge and experience of image manipulation software such as Adobe Photoshop
- Excellent verbal, written and inter-personal skills
- Highly self-motivated individual capable of working with both technical and non-technical team members
- Demonstrated ability to work within tight deadlines
- Demonstrated ability to complete writing assignments according to set standards regarding order, conciseness, clarity, appropriate style and terminology
- Ability to work without direct supervision and
Asset Skills & Abilities
- Prior knowledge and experience with SCRUM
- Prior knowledge and experience with Agile software development
- Advanced knowledge of HTML, XML and other mark-up languages
Benefits
- A salary range of $40,000- $57,000 based on experience & calculated on an annual basis
- Company sponsored training and skills improvement opportunities
- Extended Health & Dental Care following successful completion of probationary period
- 10 paid vacation days per year
- 5 paid sick leave days per year
- Participation in Social Calendar of community and employee activities and events
- Inclusion in the SmarttNet commission system
A Canadian Guide To Google Local Business Citations
Written by Kyle Pearce on July 6, 2010
The local business results that appear when you search for "Vancouver Hotels" on Google.
As I talked about in a previous post on the Top 10 Ranking Factors for Google Places, getting valuable local citations is the best way to dominate the rankings for Google’s Local Business listings. A citation is where your business name, address and phone number is mentioned (or cited) by another website. Since some Canadian businesses don’t have a website, Google is able to crawl any citations in content that mentions a business, even if a website is not linked from that page. However, having an incoming link from a citation source is preferable, as it is likely considered of higher value and the link can refer valuable traffic to your website. Continue reading
How Google’s Ranking Algorithm Works (Infographic)
Written by Kyle Pearce on June 30, 2010
In the Search Engine Marketing industry, the most common question I hear from people is how does Google rank websites? To keep things simple, I explain that the algorithmn behind Google’s PageRank ranks websites based upon:
The quantity and quality of links with incoming links from high traffic websites that have relevant content to your website providing the most value. It gets a little more complicated than that, and quality is far more highly valued than quantity, but that’s basically how it works.
So, if you’re like me and fascinated with how Google’s ranking algorithm works (and earns the company billions of dollars each year in profits!) then you will definitely find this infographic interesting.
Click on the image to view the full-size graphic. Infographic by PPC Blog
