If you are new to the world of blogging, you might not have given a lot of thought to whom you intend to gear your content towards or how to find your target audience.
You might not have yet decided what niche you will be pursuing, so it’s fine to wait on deciding on your audience until you have figured that part out.
However, knowing who your audience will be is not only pivotal in helping you grow, but also in terms of monetizing your blog.
Most new bloggers, including me, have been stuck on that very same point early in our blogging careers too.
Importance Of Knowing Your Target Audience
Many bloggers will advise a novice to the blogosphere to get out there and network as much as possible. This point is valid, and it’s something bloggers actually do.
But it can be intimidating and scary to put yourself out there, soliciting advice from expert bloggers, or even figuring out how to approach them.
An easier set of means to that same end is figuring out who the target audience for your blog will be.
These will include all the people who will be interested in your shared content.
They will visit your site to read what you have to say on a variety of topics, comment on your contributions, and share your interesting posts through their social media with family and friends.
Many commenters on blogs share their own desires for blogging, but admit to being held back but the lack of knowledge about monetization and concern about competition.
They also often use other bloggers’ content as inspiration or a valued perspective in helping them understand the value of writing blogs.
With the newest information they acquired, they are emboldened to finally start a blog of their own.
These comments and any other engagement with visitors will be a sign of who exactly your audience is and needs to be.
So why is a target audience so important?
Loyalty
Once the first of the comments begin to appear in response to your entries, the floodgates tend to open.
The comments won’t be confined to just the blog either, but also through your various social media channels.
Many bloggers who write in the same niche will get in touch with you, and some will likely ask to collaborate.
These same bloggers tend to also leave comments on other blogs linking to your work, which drives the readers of those blogs to yours as well.
Some fraction of those who make it to your blog will become regulated readers of your blog too, and so your audience will grow.
They will actively monitor your blog for new entries and be the first to read them. They will also be the ones who are the most likely to open every email you sent them.
This grows to a level of unconditional loyalty and is exactly the attribute a blogger seeks in an audience.
Building A Following
The audience of loyal readers grows into a tribalistic circle, one that then expands outward.
Many bloggers hear an audience referred to as a tribe but don’t really comprehend what that means until they begin to see things in action.
In a tribe, all members work for the betterment of the tribe, and in this process, things are not much different.
A tribe assists a blogger in growing their blog. Bloggers often use social media like Pinterest’s group boards or Facebook groups to grow their tribes, collecting contact information in the form of emails for an ever-growing email list.
Many bloggers use the Tailwind service for this purpose as well.
For this amassed following, bloggers distribute emails with valuable content, putting a lot of thought into assuring the sharing of useful information with them.
Bloggers love to not only provide exclusives to their email subscribers but also to comment valuable content to their fellow bloggers’ blogs as well.
Marketing To An Audience
By now you are likely aware that the email collection to amass a list is also intended to be used for marketing purposes.
Sharing valuable information through email newsletters bloggers can promote products, whether it be their own, or by distributing affiliate links, which help out sellers of products while earning the blogger an affiliate kickback.
Since the email list is largely made up of very loyal followers, there is a greater chance that they will take your advice on an advertised product, and make the purchase.
In doing so, they grow your revenue. The more subscribers you collect, the greater the chances of them purchasing products you market through your communication.
How Does An Audience Help A Blogger?
Aside from the financial aspect, a blogging audience helps to get the word out about your blog. If they find your information valuable, they are likely to share it with others.
Most blogs start off slow, with only close friends and family being aware, but as word gradually gets out, as long as the blogger keeps supplying content, more and more people will find their blog and if they get value from the answers to their questions, they become part of the blog’s regular audience.
Finding Topics To Blog About
Many bloggers start out so excited about the blogging prospect that they quickly burn out of topics. Coming up with blogging topics is actually quite challenging.
Once you find yourself staring at the screen or a scratch pad, trying to rack your brain for what you should write about, it can get to be a frustrating venture.
Ironically, this is where the very audience you are writing for comes in for the save.
Bloggers who feel tapped for topic ideas can head straight to the comments for their other blog posts or social media mediums and look at any questions and comments left there as responses to older blog posts.
By looking through these comments bloggers can get a whole list of ideas, and plan a timely release on them getting their audience more of what they want and need, and creating content for a new audience segment, all at the same time.
Note: If you’re just getting started here’s an article that you might find helpful: Can You Make Money Blogging On WordPress
An Audience Could Help Bloggers Generate New Products
There may come a time when a blogger wants to create their own product. Many opt to create a “how-to” tutorial in the form of an e-book.
By using analytics tools like Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Pinterest Analytics, bloggers can zero in on the most popular and sought-after topics from their audience.
This creates an idea that many people are interested in, setting up a great topic for an e-book product.
By creating something that is more in demand by an audience, bloggers can forego spending time on something that not a lot of people would be interested in.
Of course, there is no need to jump the gun on product distribution, as a blogger first needs to build up a sufficient audience.
Most bloggers who have successfully used this strategy recommend waiting until the list is at a minimum of 900 subscribers first.
The Simplest Way To Find Your Audience
Once a blogger has nailed down the niche they will write for, it’s time to think about how to recognize the target audience.
A niche topic won’t appeal to everyone and bloggers trying, will tend to do so at their own peril. In the simplest terms, who a blogger chooses should be based on who they are.
For instance, if you are someone who was able to start working from home successfully, and running your own business, it’s what you know, and therefore what you should write about.
Once a blogger figures out who they are writing to, the next step is finding an interested audience. So where does a blogger start their search?
Facebook Groups
Searching through Facebook Groups for your niche + groups will likely yield hundreds of groups on the topic. This is a great place to come up with topics too.
Reviewing comments and questions can generate a lot of great topic ideas. These topic threads can be very revealing about people’s pain points in the niche, and it provides ample material for bloggers to research and write about.
Following Others On Social Media
Scour social media through Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, to find people who are in a situation similar to your own and try to engage them in conversation, perhaps even collaborative work.
Also, seek out affiliate marketers who can help you grow your audience numbers by promoting your work.
Blog Comments
Bloggers should always pay attention not only to comments on their own blogs but to those of others as well.
This can help to generate many great ideas for questions to address in future posts, and it’s a great place to gauge if enough people have an interest in a specific topic from which you can generate an e-book.
Conclusion
The key to successful blogging is to find what motivates you, then find others who are interested in the same thing, and combine the two.
When you write about something you love and are passionate about, it shows in your output, and the audience who finds you will see it.
Passionate people tend to gravitate others to them, and when you genuinely want to help people address their problems through your content, you will reap the rewards of appreciation.
Will you share your target audience? Let us know in the comments. And of course, don’t forget to share this article!
Finally, if you enjoy my content…
PLEASE, “bookmark”, “like” and “share”. It helps a lot.
Thanks!
