By Terez Howard

You’ve rehearsed your lines. You’ve completed the finishing touches on your costume. The curtain rises, and you see an audience anticipating a five-star performance. Do you recognize the faces looking back at you?

Bloggers have a reason for blogging. They blog to share what’s going on in their personal and professional lives. They blog to promote their products or a service. They blog to express their opinions. Most often, bloggers write in the hopes of creating a reaction.

Who has a ticket to your show?

Here are some general groups of people that take a ticket to blogs:

• Relatives
• Friends
• Potential customers
• Returning customers
• Business associates
• Yourself (You write for you)

Have you chosen a group to write for? I don’t care who holds the ticket, as long as someone is reading what I write. Getting readers to follow your blog can be challenging, and in a state of desperation, you might say that you’d be satisfied with any human being capable of discerning the English reading your blog. If you want a follower to stay for the duration of the show, then not any Tom, Dick or Harry will do.

Look at it this way. You blog for a reason. Let’s say that you blog in the hopes that visitors will click on a link to buy your book on potty training boys under 2. You might be happy to see a comment from your grandmother’s Bingo partner or your son’s 10-year-old buddy. Yes, they might spread the word, but these people are not going to buy your book.

You don’t hand out tax advice or Xbox cheat codes on your potty training blog, even though that Bingo player would love to know how she can get more money back and that pre-teen wants to defeat Tomb Raider. You must stick to topic.

Know your audience

You must establish who your audience is and what they want. Returning to the previous example, you are writing to parents, and not just any parents. You specifically write for parents who have boys under the age of 2 and want to start potty training them.

You blog potty training tips that may or may not be included in your book, how to handle temper tantrums, spirited toddler boys, how to raise a happy toddler boy and throw in your personal stories. These parents will be interested in what you have to say and possibly interested in purchasing your book.

Notice that not all the topics I listed are directly related to potty training. They would, however, be subjects of interests to your audience.

Hone in on a specific group. In my example, I used parents of boys under the age of 2. One blogging professional markets to females ages 21 to 45 looking to start a small business. Another blogger writes to relatives on her mother’s side to post updates on annual family reunions. The better you know exactly who you’re writing for, the better chance you will have at retaining readers.

Sit in the front row of your show

Take a moment to get off the stage and sit yourself in one of those cushy theater chairs. Think about what your audience wants to take away from your blog. What would you want to know if you were them?

You’re audience will applaud your blog if it fills a need, satisfies a want or just pleases curiosity. Who knows? Your words could merit a standing ovation.

Who sits in your blog’s audience?

—
Terez Howard operates TheWriteBloggers, a professional blogging service which builds clients’ authority status and net visibility. She regularly blogs at Freelance Writing Mamas . You’ll find her on Twitter @thewriteblogger

Thanks, Terez!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz on your business!!