Chapter 11
Creating Something Worthwhile
So you have started a blog. You might want to make money from it, or you might have some other goal in mind. You are in it for your own goals or you want to spread your ideas. This is all well and good, but to actually achieve those goals, you have to network, gather readers, build traffic, and build links. Basically, to achieve your goals you have to serve an audience.
What does “serve an audience” mean? Rather than prioritize your advertising, affiliates, and sales, you have to give readers what they want or need. It means making something useful, something that people will want to talk about (favorably).
This is the real trick, the difference between winning and losing, and the subject of this chapter.
Knowing Your Audience
Before you can serve an audience, you need to know who they are! You need to really understand your readers, both through research and planning before you launch, and through talking to them after you launch.
If you are already a member of the community in which you are working, you will have an advantage here; however, you still need to consider who your target readers will be and what they would like to see. Consider the following:
- What are they called?
- Who do they think they are?
- Who are they really?
- Who do they want to be?
- Who do they like?
- Who don’t they like?
- Who is their peer group?
- Who do they not identify with?
- What are their beliefs?
- Where do they live?
- Where do they work?
- Where do they learn?
- Where do ...
