Writing Tutorials
Let me guess: you're a giving person and wants to help other webdesigners do better on their websites with graphic effects, tips and tricks and codes. Perhaps your current tutorials aren't getting a lot of hits or people aren't using them, or maybe you are just unhappy with the way you write tutorials. You might have never written a tutorial before and are searching for some way to learn how! Well here is a tutorial on writing tutorials. (Hee hee)
Headings
Separate your tutorial into parts. If there are smaller, numerous paragraphs, it will be more compelling for a visitor to read the whole tutorial. Just think about it: would you want to read a giant block of text? I didn't think so. Dividing the tutorial into headings also makes it much easier for return visitors to find the part of the tutorial they wanted to reread. Having separate headings can also unclutter your ideas, when they are all classified into different groups, the ideas tend to be neater and less all over the place (which, I guess, means neater. I should read this tutorial.)
Language
And I don't mean swearing, though I don't really like reading tutorials where the placeholder for your site name is "http://yourcrapsite.com". Using masses of technical jargon and complicated language will limit the people that use your tutorial to people who know as much about webdesign as you do, which means that reading your tutorial will be pretty pointless. As unfortunate as it is, the general population (ie; most of the people who will visit your site) know only the most common words in the English language, so keep your language simple and easy to understand. Keep your sentences short and to the point; avoid rambling on for ages so that your reader forgets what the sentence is about. Keep your language neat and easy to follow and it will be appreciated.
Subject Matter
The subject matter does matter! (I'm on fire today.) There is absolutely no excuse for stealing someone else's tutorial, even if you did want to make your tutorial page a little longer. Use what you already know. You may have learned it from another tutorial, but if you can write it in all your own words without referring to other tutorials and pages, you know that you do actually know what you're on about. If you are constantly checking (and copying) other sites, your tutorial won't be very strong and your visitors will probably look elsewhere and they might find the tutorial you copied, report you and have your website removed. Or they might just leave your site and never come back. Make sure that you know what you're doing when you write a tutorial.
Images and Examples
If you are doing a complicated tutorial that you find is hard to put into words that are easy to understand, remember: pictures are worth a thousand words. Instead of saying "right click on the second folder on the middle right frame, excluding the backwards '..' folder, and select the fourth option from the second group", why not have an image of the full screen, with the cursor on the folder and the right click menu in plain view? Then you can simply say "right click on 'images' and select 'insert into tutorial'". If you are doing a coding effect tutorial, an example of the code's effects, especially compared to an example of the same thing without the code, can help the reader understand what it does and possibly make them want to use it, once they see what it does.
Links
When you write a tutorial, sometimes it can be very specific, but sometimes it can be a tutorial encompassing other things that your reader might not know about, like Cutenews or Fanupdate tutorials. Your tutorial might be about adding custom emoticons, but your reader might not even know how to install it. In this situation, one or two links to other tutorials would probably be appreciated by the reader (this could also be a great opportunity to plug your other tutorial about installing Fanupdate). What you don't need to do is: a) look on Google for every single tutorial on the web on installing Cutenews, or b) provide a link to every single tutorial on your site. Both are extremely annoying, because you should remember that not everyone who is looking at your tutorial is a total n00b. Though they are if they write the word n00b.
Manner
Note the difference between "manner" and "manners". If you want to say "please" and "thank you" in your tutorial, go ahead, but I mean the manner of speaking. My tutorials are fairly casual in manner, with a few weak jokes and subtle references thrown in, as well as personal language ("you", "I") and sometimes a rather blunt statement or two. This is because the people who read my tutorials are a small group of people who write blogs and sites much like mine and who will probably appreciate some humour. However, other tutorials, especially those on much more famous sites that have a much wider user range and have a greater capacity to offend people, have a more formal manner, with impersonal manner (no pronouns), straightforward instructions and large amounts of text punctuated by crisp images. Both kinds of tutorials let you know what you need to know. I myself prefer to read the first time, unless I'm in a rush and need to know something for when I'm making a graphic or quickly coding a site, in which case I would prefer straightforward, numbered steps that I can quickly read and complete, and it's more likely that I would go onto Google and end up on one of those bigger sites anyway. It's totally up to you what kind of manner you use.
Quantity
If you have heaps of tutorials, like but moreso than graphics and downloadable content, even if you're not updating your site you might still get plenty of hits from people looking at your tutorials. Keep in mind that you should never sacrifice quality for quantity. Just write a tutorial when you feel like it, not when you feel you should have another one. When it comes to you, it comes to you. Having plenty of tutorials is great, but having good tutorials is better.
In conclusion: there is rarely such thing as a bad tutorial, except if it's something irrelevant, common knowledge, or written without the elements listed above.