Do you know who your target reader is? Do you know how to figure it out?
It doesn’t matter how long you have been blogging.
It may be two weeks. It could be two months. Perhaps you’ve been at this thing for over two years. Whatever the extent of your experience the endgame is the same.
How do you build your audience?
Finding and then keeping an audience is the challenge of any writer. Readers are a finicky bunch, myself included, and they want what they want. Am I right? So how do you go about finding them and then get them to come back for more?
I have searched around and found a lot of information for businesses on finding “customers” but that’s not really what we’re after. So, what does it take to find actual “blog readers”?
The truth is YOU actually hold the answer to that question. You get to choose who you want to read your content. It has to do with your niche.
Think of it as a circle – you write about your love of coffee – therefore, you want readers to visit your site who also love coffee – as you write more about it – they come, they read, they like what they read and they come back to read more – repeat.
“But, I write way more than just about coffee” you say.
Well then, you need to figure out all the things you write about and all the people who you want to read about those things. Guess what? They aren’t all the same.
Ultimately, the more you write about, the more you have to know who it’s for. If your blog is about coffee, faith, homeschooling and recipes, you’ve got your work cut out for you. The truth is that not everyone who comes to read about recipes is going to also read your homeschooling posts. You have to be very specific for each area and be ready to build separate audiences for each topic too. The more eclectic you are, the more work you have to do to find and keep an audience.
But, here’s the good news. This is doable. It may take you more time than say a blogger who only writes about one thing, like coffee and only coffee, but if you are willing to put in the time, you can totally do this.
There are also benefits from taking the time to find your target reader. When you know who you are writing for, you will write more efficiently, be more focused, and probably be faster in your efforts. The map will be right in front of you. You just have to follow it.
The 3 main questions you need to answer are:
1. Who do I want to read my blog?
2. Why does that person want to read this post?
3. What problem does he or she have that I can solve?
If you are serious about growing your audience, I recommend taking a more in-depth look at your readers by working through this Target Reader Questionnaire.
If you want to build your audience you have to start by figuring out who that audience is. As you write for them, they will start to multiply. Who doesn’t want an audience that multiplies?
It’s time to stop spinning your wheels doing this blogging thing. Take the time to figure out who target reader is. This one act could make all the difference for you. Instead of flailing around, create a map that will help guide you to the audience you are hunting for.
Are you ready to find your target reader?
Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash
Photo by John Schnobrich on Unsplash
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