Write the top five, not the top fifty
Sort your ticket categories by volume. In nearly every business, five topics account for around a third of everything. Write those five properly before writing anything else.
A knowledge base of two hundred thin articles deflects less than five thorough ones, and takes twenty times longer to produce.
Answer the question the customer asked
Internal documentation describes how a feature works. A knowledge-base article answers what the customer is trying to do. “Mailbox quota management” is a feature. “My email has stopped arriving” is the search.
Put it where the customer already is
A knowledge base only reachable from a footer link deflects nothing. Surface articles in the chat widget, as suggestions while the customer types their ticket subject, and in the acknowledgement email.
Link it from your canned replies
Every time an agent answers a repeated question, the reply should include the article link. This is how articles get distributed, and it is the step almost every team forgets.
Measure and prune
Article ratings tell you which pieces are failing. An article with a poor score is worse than no article, because the customer read it, was not helped, and now opens a ticket in a worse mood. Rewrite or delete.