Are you writing for your audience?

Who is reading your blog? How much do you know about them? Most important of all, are you writing for them? All of them?

Image: Chris Sharp / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

You see, your blog probably has a really diverse range of readers if it's been around for some time.

Here at Mike's Life, we have:

• People who have arrived from search to get some specific information on a topic
• New and learning bloggers who are reading every day to increase their knowledge and understanding
• My online mates who come here to support me, RT the posts and interact with me
• People I know in the real world who are curious about what I'm doing on line

..and numerous other groups of people.

The point is, they are all here for different reasons. And I need to provide each group with something to keep them engaged and interested enough to keep them coming back - it's all part of not having a one dimensional blog.

Take my online mates as an example - they're not interested in buying anything from me. They are at least on a par with my knowledge, and many are way ahead of me. So when I'm in selling mode, they're not interested. But when it's time for a discussion post, they're right there with some great comments.

Then there's the new and learning blogger group. They want information, and lots of it, with real helpful detail. They don't care about The One Million Book Giveaway. They want to know about Clickbank or keywords. And they probably do want to know about the stuff I'm selling.

How about the people arriving from a search? Hopefully, they'll get the answer they're looking for. But have I done enough on those posts to get them to hang around and find out more, or are they going to increase your bounce rate?

How do you find out who you're writing for?

• Look at your commenters, check out their sites, think about who they are and what they need
• Carry out a survey and ask them!
• Get to know some of them better on email
• Ask them questions about themselves as part of your email autoresponder series

It's too easy to fall into the trap of writing for one group only - I could write posts for my online mates every day. We'd have a great time. But that wouldn't pay the bills.

Who's reading your blog? Are you writing for all of them?

And there are also these to look at:

1/ Being positive

2/ Eight quick timesaving tips for bloggers

3/ Eight ways to overcome a lack of motivation as a blogger