One of the biggest struggles many new bloggers deal with is the issue of determining for whom they’re blogging. Learning how to find your blog audience and creating content that appeals to them can greatly change your blog’s success.
You want your blog to grow and be popular, right?
I did too when I was starting my Suburban Tourist blog. Unfortunately, I made one crucial mistake: I didn’t know exactly who was my target audience. My blog content was all over the place. I was blogging for myself.
The result: traffic dropped.
Once I figured out my niche audience, the blog started growing exponentially.
So, how do you find your ideal blog audience? Who is your target reader?
When you start a blog, there are many things to learn and implement. One step you should focus on is determining your target audience. By the end of this post, you’ll have a good idea of how to find your perfect blog audience and start creating blog content that your readers will love.
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Why Do You Need To Define Your Blog Target Audience?
Before we jump to the how let me stress once again the why.
Why should you determine your niche audience before you start blogging?
Here are a few key reasons as a blogger you should know how to find your target audience:
- You will start creating content that resonates with your reader’s interests and needs (pain points)
- Creating a content calendar that’s cohesive topic-wise will be easier
- Better opportunities to quickly grow a community around your blog and niche
- It’s easier to convert your readers into potential customers if you’re selling digital products and services like coaching
- Creating a free offer (lead magnet) for your newsletter list will be easier, as will growing your subscriber list
- You will finally start generating blog traffic and growing your blog
There are many more reasons why knowing who your blog audience is will help you in growing and scaling up your blog.
How To Find Your Blog Audience In 4 Steps
You’ve most likely chosen a blog niche. Now it’s time to figure out who you are trying to reach with your blog. The best thing a blogger should do when doing this exercise is to think like a marketer.
Finding your target audience is the same as determining your top customer persona.
For this you will need the following information:
1. Demographics
These are the essential details about your target audience.
- Where they live
- Age
- Marital status
- Kids
- Household income
- Level of education
2. Psychographics
These details look into behaviours and beliefs.
- What do they believe?
- What are their values?
- What are their behaviours/interests?
3. Your Niche Audiences’ Pain Point
What’s keeping your key target up at night? What is the big challenge they need help with?
For example, for new bloggers, the main pain point is trying to figure everything out. There are so many blogging skills they need to learn and implement in their new blog.
What are your readers most concerned with in your topic niche? How can you help them?
When you know this, you can focus your content and your blog’s brand messaging around the problem and provide the solution.
TIP: Don’t get too granular in your thinking. The problem can be fairly broad. For example, if you have a food blog and your audience is moms consider the key problems: lack of time and budget but a desire to cook healthy for the family. Your content should provide tips and tricks and recipes on how to make healthy meals quickly and make your food budget stretch.
4. Where Your Target Audience Gets Information And Inspiration
One of the biggest time-wasting mistakes that bloggers make is not knowing where their blog audience spends time seeking information.
What platforms do they use to get answers to problems in your niche?
For example, you are a food blogger. What sources do your readers potentially use?
- Food apps like Yummly
- Social media: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook
Prioritize based on what you know are popular places for inspiration.
Identify Blog Audience Sub-Groups
You may have your main blog audience, but there may be sub-groups that you need to identify.
For example, your main audience may be busy moms. Your sub-groups may be busy moms who work from home, those with little kids, or homeschooling moms.
You can break it down to your primary target audience and your secondary blog audiences. When you’re creating content, you’ll have more options when it comes to blog topics.
Where To Discover Your Blog Target Audience?
You need to know how to find your blog target audience by doing research.
But where?
The best places are where you think they are getting information on your topic.
Your goals are to observe and discover what kind of questions they are seeking.
Here’s where you discover your blog audience:
- Facebook groups on your niche topic: You’ll see what kinds of questions they are asking, and if you peek at their profiles you can get a rough idea of who they are and their interests.
- Pinterest Analytics: Create a Pinterest business account for your blog and start pinning content – even if it’s from others. In a short while you’ll start to get data on who your audience is that’s interacting with it.
- Your competitors: Check out their About pages. If written well, you’ll get an understanding of who they are trying to reach. Also, check out their social media to see who is following them.
- Instagram/TikTok: Start posting videos and posts in your niche. Use a business account which will provide you with some general audience insights.
- Talk to people: Friends, family and others who you meet are potential readers. Start asking them questions to create your ideal target reader.
Create A Blog Audience Persona
Just like marketers create a customer persona, create a blog audience persona. Use the information I’ve noted above – i.e. the demographic, psychographics and information on pain points and resources.
Visualize what your ideal reader persona looks like.
Using Canva create a dossier for your main and secondary ideal readers.
When creating your content calendar, refer back to your blog audience personas. Is what you plan to publish of interest to your readers?
This will help you keep on track, creating content for your blog audience.
How To Get Blog Readers: Create Content For Your Target Audience
Now that you know how to find your blog audience, look at your list of potential blog post ideas. Do they appeal to your readers? Do they provide a solution for the main pain point?
Make a conscious effort to create a list of potential blog post ideas specifically for your readers.
If you’re updating blog posts, consider whether your content fits your blog niche reader’s interests. You may need to edit your blog content to make it appealing to them.
Start blogging confidently!
QUESTION: What is your biggest challenge in finding the right readers for your blog?
My biggest challenge is properly identifying my audience and making sure my content aligns with them. This post has definitely helped me to clarify some of the questions I had surrounding my aidience so now I’ll work on creating better content.