Identifying blog purpose and target audience are two of the first steps you want to take as you start your blogging journey.
What is the purpose of a blog?
The purpose of a blog is often the reason or driven passion behind why you created your blog in the first place.
Ask Yourself:
- Why did I create this blog?
- Who am I creating content for?
- What is the problem that I am trying to solve?
Whatever your responses are to those 3 questions lies underlying answers to the purpose behind your blog.
Why did I create this blog?
First, things first. You may have created your blog for a multitude of reasons. When I first began blogging I did not have a specific niche. Matter of fact I didn’t even know what a blogging niche was and I wasn’t interested much in the concept after hearing about it within the blogging community.
Not niching down early on was a blogging mistake I made as a beginner blogger.
RELATED: Top 5 Blogging Mistakes To Avoid
One thing that I did know is that I wanted to blog, simply as a lifestyle blogger. Meaning I blogged about whatever I wanted to blog about. That’s the perk of being a lifestyle blogger. Anything pretty much goes.
Why did you create your blog?
Who is your target audience?
Have you defined your blog’s target audience? In other words, do you know who your target market is? In other words, who are you writing for?
A blog’s target audience is the person or community of people who will find your blog’s content the most beneficial.
What I didn’t understand is the importance of identifying and understanding who I was creating content for. Identifying my target audience earlier on would have made the purpose of my blog much clearer.
You can identify your target audience by making it clear who you are creating content for and identifying a problem of theirs and how you are going to solve it.
For instance, my target audience is beginner bloggers, like yourself. My passion is to help other bloggers who are starting out on their blogging journey. Having identified my target audience has ultimately shaped the purpose of my blog and determines the content that I produce for my target audience (aka readers like you).
When creating content I keep my reader in mind. I strive to create the most helpful content that will provide bloggers with inspiration and guidance as they create successful blogs.
With each post, I always consider how my content will help the reader. I also like to include a call to action for my readers after reading my post. This allows my target audience to connect with my post.
Why is it important to know who your targeted audience is?
Knowing who you are writing for helps you create the most helpful content for your reader.
As a beginner blogger, your goal is to prove your expertise and gain the trust of your readers. This is accomplished by creating useful content that gets your readers the results they are seeking. Whether, its advice or an actual solution to their problem.
Knowing who your targeted audience helps you create the best blog posts that your audience wants to read and share with others.
With a specific and target audience in mind, you not only have a better chance of grabbing the attention of your reader but also you have a better chance of solving their problem.
The benefits of identifying blog purpose and target audience
Once you have identified the purpose of your blog and your target audience you know exactly what to write, how to write, and to whom to write.
Knowing this allows you as a blogger to get creative with your blog posts and craft content that will attract the type of audience intended for the purpose of your blog. As well as your target audience.
The benefit of attracting your target audience to your blog will then encourage the reader to read your post and share your content with others within the community.
It makes a reader feel special when they read and are engaged in content that seems to have been created just for them with their interest and benefit in mind. This is only possible if you as a blogger takes the time to get to know your target reader.
How do you find your target audience?
Once you have identified who your target audience is you have to do some research. Research to determine exactly what their problem or struggle is so you can create the useful content they are seeking.
Creating content that is relevant and of high interest among your target audience is important. I highly encourage you to utilize social media to conduct research on your target audience.
Connecting to your target audience can be made through social media such as Twitter and Facebook just to name a few. Take a look around and observe the type of problems people are reporting or having within your target audience.
For instance, with my target audience being new bloggers a common problem that new bloggers face is the challenges of understanding SEO.
With my blog purpose outlined to help other new bloggers turn into successful bloggers, I will create content appealing to my readers. Since SEO is a common problem that new bloggers face with understanding the concept and process that would be one of my highest ranked blog topics. Blogging about SEO and providing resources to my readers will gain their trust as I help them solve their blogging problem.
Let’s review
You have already taken the first steps within your blogging journey by simply reading this post. By now, you should have a much clearer idea of your blog purpose and target audience.
Please share with me in the comments your blog purpose and target audience. Has it changed at all, prior to reading this post?
If you are still unsure of your blog purpose and target audience, please share with me the challenges you are facing. Sometimes it can be difficult to ultimately niche down and focus on one purpose and target audience.
However, it’s better to niche down and blog about a few things very well than blogging about a lot of things with no structure or purpose.
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brittshedhappens
This is a great summary of how to identify and target the ideal reader for your blog. It’s an important step that every blogger needs to take if they are interested in taking their blog to the next level (growing their following and monetizing their efforts).
bloglifewitherica
This is very true! One of my November goals will be to refocus on my target audience and try to reach more people who would be interested and benefit from my blog.
xo Erica