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This post has been submitted by Salwa from BlogRiffic.com, a blog about search engine optimization, art, design, and blogging in general. To hear more from Salwa subscribe to her RSS Feed.

Possibly the most important thing to keep in mind is that is that you, the blog owner, are not your target audience. Don’t simply write for yourself. Unless of course you don’t care if anyone else reads your blog. Take the time to do some research and conduct a market analysis. Use the Internet, study other blogs, read offline resources, whatever you can get your hands on that will help you to understand the group, or groups, you are targeting.

Although you do not want to target too many groups or make your target too broad, you also do not want to limit yourself or turn interested readers away initially. Once you have a good idea of what is working and what type of readers are bringing the most value to your blog, you can tweak it and begin to narrow down your target audience.

Identify Your Target Audience

What type of audience are you targeting? Consumers? Businesses? Non-profits?

This is a very broad assessment and should probably be one of the first things to consider. It takes different styles to attract a business to your blog than a consumer. It will take a different approach to target a commercial business than it does a non-profit organization. You need to know what they want, what they need, what they think of your blog, and what other blogs you are competing with for their loyalty.

Who is your target audience?

If you are blogging about skateboarding, your primary target audience will most likely be young males. This is not to say that females won’t be reading your blog or older folks, but you will mainly be targeting teenage males. If you are blogging about the latest skin care products, your primary audience will be females, and depending upon the type of products perhaps you can narrow it down by age as well. As mentioned earlier, don’t limit yourself too strictly initially; Wait until you have a good idea of who your readers are before you begin pinpoint targeting.

Where is your target audience located?

To expand upon our first example, if you are blogging about skateboarding, you will want to know whether your readers are in a sunny, warm climate year-round or have a long cold winter, in which case indoor skateboard parks would be a reasonable topic. If your skin care blog readers are located in dry, cold climates you would work with different topics than if your readers are located in humid, hot areas where a good majority of their time will be spent outdoors.

Once You Have Identified Your Target Audience

Once you know who your target audience is, it’s time to move on to knowing what they want. What kind of things should you write about? Will you focus on one topic or many? What topics will excite my readers?

Know what kind of things you will need to cover

Write about what you know, what you want to know, and what your target audience is interested in knowing. Remember, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, you are not your target audience. While you should be interested in the topic, keep it appropriate for your target audience. If you can’t write about what they want, then you should seriously re-consider the type of audience you are targeting.

Know whether you need to focus on one or many topics

The answer to how many topics you will need to cover is that it depends. If you have a broad overall blog, such as Politics, then you will probably write about many different topics over time. If you have a relatively narrow blog, such as Renaissance Artists, you will most likely have fewer topics to cover. Keep in mind that the more topics you cover, the more competition you will be up against. However, you may also increase our traffic. Just make sure that it is “good” traffic and not just random. Remember, start out on the broad side and then, as you see what readers are responding to, narrow it down. This is a dynamic process, as you narrow your focus down, you may find that it fizzles out after a while. It will then be time to begin the process again. Broaden your focus and then narrow it down when you find what is working again.

Know what topics will excite your readers

As your blog matures, you will see what readers respond to the best. Expand upon those topics and get rid of those that aren’t doing so well at the time. Nothing works better than a topic that interests and excites your readers. A topic that grab your readers’ attention and excites them will have better results than one that is tired, overused, or old news. Even if it is a topic that is fresh and interesting, you may find that it just isn’t a good fit for your readers. Maybe another blog is having a great time with the topic but, if it doesn’t fit your audience, then it is at risk to fail.

In Conclusion

Probably the most important thing to know about your target audience is that they are the reason you are in business. Write for them, write to them, and write about them. The Internet is a competitive market and audiences are fickle. You must work hard to build your following and earn their trust. Keep in mind that your target audience is probably the same as that of a hundred other blogs. You must work hard to keep them coming to your blog or they will leave, never to return, if they find better value elsewhere. Your blog is there to serve your readers interests, wants, and needs. Never forget, it is your target audience for whom you are writing.

While your target may change over time, always strive to know exactly who your audience is. If you don’t, then work the process and discover whom it is, then create your blog to cater to this audience. You will find yourself having more fun with your blog when you target the right audience.

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