The 5 Barriers to Success Series — Part 3: The Absence of Definition
Photo by Jekkyl
If you’ve been wondering why your blog or website hasn’t been growing as quickly or steadily as you hoped, you might be encountering one (or more) of the five barriers to success. So far, I’ve covered two parts:
- Content with a lack of significance for its target audience.
- A lack of diverse entry points to the site.
In this post, I’ll be discussing the third barrier to success: a badly defined (or un-defined) target audience.
Barrier 3: The Absence of Definition
When you ask a blogger or webmaster for an elevator pitch, they’ll usually say something like: “I write about this, this and that.” I’d like to alter this habit. I’d like us to start saying: “I wrote for the following types of people.” Let me explain why.
If you’re writing for people rather than on topics, you’re forced to think about who you’re writing for, what interests them, what their needs are and how you can be useful. If you’re writing about topics alone without considering the context, there’s no compass to follow.
If your blog is about Firefox, anything you write about Firefox meets the criteria. But does anyone want to read it? It’s incredibly difficult to evaluate what you should be writing about, and how you should be writing.
Instead, think about what kinds of people are interested in the topics you want to write about. How can you tailor your coverage of the topic to suit their needs?
Value is subjective. If you haven’t defined your target audience, you can’t hope to work out what is valuable to them.
The challenge I give you today is to sit down and answer the question: Who am I writing for? Once you answer that vital question, knowing what to write about, how to write it and how/where to promote your blog becomes a whole lot easier.
* * *
Skelliewag reader Heshy has written a post inspired by his Audacious Blogging experience. Go check it out if you’re interested in the idea of audacity.
