Targeting Your Audience With the Right Blog Posts
When I first created a blog I was planning on using it to
augment my small business. I had heard that blogs were pulling in amazing
search engine results, better than "normal" websites, so I had to
test this new technology for myself.
If you have ever managed an online business you will be
aware of the importance of choosing the right target audience. Even with small
numbers, as low as 50 visitors per day, you can get results provided those 50
visitors are the right target audience for what you are selling.
I started my first blog on the industry I was working in,
proofreading, and I struggled. I am not a proofreader and while I enjoy running
the business I have little interest in the actual industry. Coming up with new
content for a blog on proofreading very quickly became tiresome.
I decided to change focus and began blogging about what I
really enjoyed, Internet marketing. I started to write about my experiences
setting up businesses online and told stories of my successes and failures.
Blogging about Internet business was a lot easier then
discussing proofreading, but clearly the audience I was attracting to my blog
was not very relevant to my small business. I created a new blog, specifically
for the Internet marketing niche I was writing about.
MY FIRST
ATTEMPT TO MAKE MONEY FROM BLOGGING
My new blog about Internet business grew really well thanks
to my traffic strategies. A few months into it I decided it was time to attempt
to make money - to monetize my blog.
Like many bloggers I first tried using Google's AdSense
program [https://www.google.com/adsense/]
and placed their contextual ad links on my blog.
The result - between $0 and $0.50 a day plus I wasn't happy
with the ads that were displayed on my blog. A few months later I took the
AdSense off.
Next I tried affiliate marketing where you recommend other
people's products and get paid a commission if you make a sale. I wrote a good
sales blog post telling my readers of a fantastic offer on a marketing
newsletter subscription service with a bonus e-book that I thought would be
very relevant to my audience.
I woke up the day after posting that sales letter to no
sales. During the next week or two I made about $26 total, not exactly a
roaring success.
KNOW YOUR
AUDIENCE
After my failure at making money from my blog I was in a bad
mood and I decided that all my efforts during the past months to grow my blog
traffic must have attracted a readership with no money to spend, or I was
pitching products that they weren't interested in.
Needless to say I went on after my initial problems to make
money from blogging (I've since had a day where I made over $900!) but the
lesson I learnt was a good one. Know the target audience you want to attract,
know why you want to attract them and implement traffic strategies that will
bring in only that target audience.
It's better to bring in one targeted reader than ten random
surfers. Your traffic strategies must reflect this.
WHO IS YOUR
TARGET AUDIENCE?
Take a second to jot down exactly who it is you want reading
your blog. You can define such characteristics as:
- Age bracket
- Sex
- Income
- Phase in life (university student, retiree, etc)
- Industry
- Job Status (manager, CEO, employee)
With a target reader profile you should find it easier to
conceptualize and generate the content to appeal to them. You can "step
into their shoes" and brainstorm the best traffic sources to draw from
that will attract the right audience. Remember in almost all cases it's
*quality* over quantity when it comes to blog traffic.
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