You will have to learn find your target audience , if you have any hope of eventually building a real business around your blog. In fact, developing a deep understanding of your blog's audience will be the most important activity that forms the foundation on which your blog can grow.
Finding your target audience and learning exactly how you can best help them is key to write blog posts that actually solve the challenges of real people and show you how to stand out from the competition in the long run.
Learning to find your target audience (first) will save you from wasting time writing blog posts that no one wants to read, and it will show you which topics will become more popular over time.
Many new bloggers find it hard to know , promising is their target audience during the blog business planning process, not to mention how to find them. Who should you write for? How do you know what content topics will interest them? How do you get out and attract readers to your target audience?
This guide will show you exactly how to find your target audience and how to learn more about their most pressing needs.
How to find your target audience (define your blog readers): 11 easy ways
Ok, so we explained Why it is important to write content that is valuable to your audience. We'll now dive into how to find your target audience in the first place and how you can translate your knowledge about them into content that stands out from the competition.
There are many different ways to find your target audience, but these are the ones that have proven to be the most effective for you to grow your blog effectively and get started. how to make money with your blog .
1. Social media as a powerful resource for finding your target audience
On average, internet users around the world spend 144 minutes a day on social networks . This stat is from 2020, but new data suggests that the time people spend on social media has increased even further during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With people spending so much time on social media, it's not only a good tool to find your target audience, but also to learn more about how people think and the things that interest them.
Bloggers should take advantage of social media platforms to find and learn more about their target audience. Let's look at several great social media platforms and how you can find your target audience on them.
Facebook: groups, pages and your own Facebook feed
As you've probably already noticed, Facebook is a place where people like to voice their opinions. Your Facebook feed is a destination where you can learn more about people's likes, dislikes, interests, and opinions. Some of this information may be useful for creating better blog content, or it may not be particularly insightful. It depends on your blog niche .
Another way to find your target audience on Facebook is to join groups within your niche. There are many very specific niche groups on Facebook that you can join and find out more about the audience you hope to bring back to your blog. If you study the posts that members share in these groups, you can learn things like:
- What products they like to use
- What questions or concerns come up frequently
- What problems do they face
- What's trending in your niche
- What common demographics are interested in your niche
Facebook also allows you to follow other pages in your niche, so you may be able to find other influencers creating content in your space, which opens the door to potential collaboration opportunities that should, hopefully align with your overall blogging strategy.
Pinterest: boards, group boards and specific keyword searches
Pinterest doesn't work quite the same way as Facebook, but there's still valuable information that can be gathered about your target audience here too, if you know where to look. One way to learn more about the interests of your target audience is to do some Pinterest keyword research. This is similar to SEO keyword research, but it works a little differently here.
To conduct keyword research on Pinterest, start with a word closely related to your niche.
This is where things get really interesting… do you see the list of clickable suggestion words at the top of the page, to help narrow down your search results a bit?
Pinterest displays these keywords because these are the things users typically search for when they search for the word “ blog ". This is a very useful overview to give you a better understanding of the topics people are interested in (in your target audience) – as it relates to your niche, especially for those who use Pinterest the most.
You can click on any of the words or phrases listed in these keyword bubbles, and you'll be able to narrow down your search results a bit more.
Prior to 2017, Pinterest let you see a Pin's popularity by sharing the number of times a Pin was repinned. They no longer offer this information to all users (only the Pin owner can see this data now), so the popularity of a particular Pin isn't as easy to identify as it used to be. in the old days.
What you pouvez see though, is how many followers the original owners of the pins have. If they post a lot of content in your niche (and have a large following), their followers may also be the same type of people you're looking to bring to your blog.
Here are some ideas for win-win partnerships you can forge with active bloggers on Pinterest:
- Ask to start a group pinterest board where you can both contribute pins that your combined audiences will see
- See if they would be willing to post a few of your pins to their most popular forums (in exchange for you to do the same)
- Feature her on a guest post that could introduce your content to her Pinterest readers and followers
As a bonus, if you go to her Pinterest account page, you can also see both the people who follow her (by selecting "community") and those she also follows, giving you even more insight. of possible partnerships to study.
Also, when you scroll through the followers of a Pinterest account that is clearly successful in your niche, you can learn more about who is interested in the type of content you want to create. This can help you spot demographic trends (especially regarding age and gender) for your target audience.
Instagram: Influencers, popular accounts and hashtags
Instagram doesn't have groups like Facebook, but hashtags can be a very effective way to find your target audience and also reach them with your own content.
If you click on the most trending images, you will be able to identify some of the best influencers in your niche, which opens up a lot of possibilities.
You can see what types of content they post (and how well they are received by their audience). You can also browse through their followers to get an idea of the types of people interested in travel blog content, and you can even chat with some of those followers to learn more about the content they're looking for.
Twitter: individual accounts, lists and hashtags
Twitter is one of my favorite social media platforms for connecting with like-minded people and learning more about my target audience.
There are three ways to find your target audience on Twitter (and learn more about them), namely:
- Twitter Lists
- Twitter hashtags
- Find Twitter influencers in your niche
Twitter Lists
Twitter lists are organized groups of Twitter accounts. You can create your own lists and you can also follow lists created by other people.
Lists will only show you which the content of the accounts that have been added to it. There are easy ways to find already created listings in your niche.
The first is to find an influencer in your niche and see what lists they have already created.
Use Twitter hashtags to find your target audience
Hashtags are another great way to discover people who are actively interested in your niche on Twitter.
Search Twitter and Google Trends to see which hashtags are trending in your niche, and search for them on Twitter to see what types of content people are sharing, participate in ongoing conversations, and take note of the demographics of your target audience who use those hashtags.
Be especially careful to observe any influential Twitter users who actively participate in these hashtags, watch what they post, and flag them as potential partners to contact soon.
Find Twitter influencers in your niche
Finding influencers in your niche is a good way to find your target audience as well, as these people are likely already reaching the audience you want to tap into as well.
One way to find them is to do a normal hashtag search like what we covered above. While researching hashtags, you will likely come across the best influencers in your niche.
Twitter also offers a advanced search option which helps you find specific date ranges, people and more:
If you are having trouble finding influencers in your niche on Twitter, you can also use Google to find the best influencers in your niche or you turn to tools like Buzzsumo who can provide you with curated and ranked lists of the most relevant influencers on particular topics. :
Using a tool like Buzzsumo gives you the added benefit of being able to create custom lists of influencers (on platforms like Twitter) that you can start contacting and start the process of building blog promotion relationships. win-win. As a bonus, you can also set up a Google alert to receive email notifications about your favorite content topics.
Use Social Media Insights to find your target audience
If you've ever been active on a particular social media channel (and have a bit of a following), you can use the insights provided by just about any social media platform, to learn a whole lot more about your target audience and understand certain trends regarding people who are already choosing to engage with you.
Instagram Insights on your target audience
If you use an Instagram business (or creator) account, you will have access to information about your followers, including important data such as:
- The age group
- The genus
- Place
- The average hours/days your subscribers are most active
When you learn how to find your target audience for your blog, this qualitative information can be incredibly powerful in making an informed decision about where to spend more time online.
Pinterest Insights on your target audience
A (free) Pinterest business account gives you a wealth of valuable information about your target audience. If you select "audience insights", you can get information such as:
You can even learn more about your target audience with regards to both demographics and psychographics such as:
- Popular categories and related interests of your audience
- The age
- The genus
- Place
- What device they use
One cool feature that Pinterest lets you do is choose stats about your total audience or your most engaged audience, which is pretty close to knowing more about your top target readers.
- Your total audience is made up of everyone who has viewed or interacted with one of your pins in the last 30 days
- Your engaged audience only includes users who have interacted with one of your pins in the last 30 days
Facebook Insights on your target audience
Facebook's business page analytics offer a wealth of information, but those specifically related to the type of target audience you're attracting to your page fall into three main categories:
- Your fans
- Your subscribers
- People with
Within each of these subcategories, you can gather key demographics to learn more about your target audience:
- The genus
- Countryside
- The city
- Language
Twitter Insights on your target audience
Although Twitter retired its audience insights feature in early 2020, the analytics available to all account users still reveal interesting insights into your account growth and which tweets are getting the most engagement. each month :
Unfortunately, you will no longer be able to gather much information (from a macro perspective) when it comes to demographics such as:
- The genus
- The age
- Place
- Household income categories
That being said, you can still glean a lot on an individual level if you click through your followers' profiles and take note of key demographics (and psychographics) that are obvious enough to notice.
2. Locate online discussion forums (to find your target audience)
In today's age of social media, it can be easy to forget that online discussion forums still exist on the internet, for just about every possible niche. Although many people use Twitter or Facebook for their online discussions, dedicated forums also provide a place where like-minded people can collect and discuss topics that are important to them.
You can find forums on many different topics very easily, just by searching Google and seeing what comes up.
This can help you enormously not only in learning how to find your target audience for your blog, but also in identifying their most common pain points and the types of solutions you can provide with your blog content…
3. Use Google to research your target audience
Google searches for a handful of the most obvious keywords in your niche. It might not exactly find your target audience, but it will definitely help point you in the right direction towards more practical ways to get in close contact with people who are likely to be your readers.
From the profile level, you can collect much more information about the interests of your blog's target audience, and you can even follow and connect with those people.
By searching Google for the most popular keyword phrases in your niche, you can:
- Have a clear idea of what topics are trending
- Find well-established websites that your target audience already spends time on
- Observe how winning articles rank
- See which titles are performing the best and what people are saying on these sites
This process will also give you a much clearer idea of the types of content that will be most relevant to your target audience.
4. Look at the competition (other influencers or brands in your niche)
To learn more about your target audience, look at other competing influencers, bloggers, brands in your niche. Start by seeing who is currently ranking for some of your top keyword phrases in Google Search.
You can collect a lot of information about your target audience, such as:
- Take note of these article titles that seem to perform best on Google
- Click on each of these sites and spot the other content topics they cover (to see what's clearly trending)
- See what kinds of discussions are happening in the comments section (and who those people are)
- Notice how individual articles are organized and what key sections they tend to cover
Knowing what other people in your niche are blogging about will give you a really good idea of what's going on in your niche, especially when looking at successful bloggers.
Which blog posts are getting the most attention? Which ones attract you the most (and therefore people like you, who may share similar interests)?
These are the types of questions you can ask yourself when browsing through content produced by other bloggers in your niche – to come away with useful information on your way to learning how to find your target audience.
5. Read the comments section on competing blogs
Once you're on your competitors' blogs, another extremely useful way to find your target audience (and learn more about them) is to spend some time reading the comment sections on their most popular posts. popular (and of course on one of their active social media accounts as well).
Reading the comment section of your top competitors' blogs will give you invaluable insight into what questions you can (better) answer for your audience.
From blog comments you can not only know , promising posts, but you can also gather invaluable qualitative insights into what questions they have and what they want to know more about.
The comments they leave on your competitors' blogs will give you answers to valuable questions such as:
- What information has your competitor failed to provide?
- What additional content are reviewers looking for?
- Which demographic tends to comment in this niche?
- What are their main concerns?
You can even extract new blog post ideas to write on your own site after being inspired by the comments section of a competing blog.
6. Learn from your own comments section
If you already have a blog that drives traffic and attracts a steady stream of engaged readers, your own comments section will be one of the most valuable destinations for learning more about your target audience. I often turn to the comments section of my own blog for more inspiration and to find out what my audience actively wants to know more about.
Here's a very relevant question someone recently asked in the comments to my ultimate guide to how to start a blog (which has over 1 comments):
This is such a good question. This comment shows me that at least part of my target audience is looking for additional information and advice regarding best practices in SEO that they can implement and the practical strategies they can implement to better grow their blog.
Another blog comment may ask about hosting plans and their relationship to WordPress. It might show me that my audience wants to know more about the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org , whether they want to learn more about affordable monthly hosting plans, or maybe they want a list of the best free blogging sites available to really get their blogs off the ground for free.
It's through these kinds of blog comments that I'm able to create a more valuable portfolio of impactful and useful content for my audience. All the while, I'm constantly learning more about who my readers are and how to find my target audience in exciting and new ways.
7. Use known statistics (like the Pew Research Center)
Believe it or not, many research and data collection companies provide free information and statistics that you can use to learn more about groups of people.
Pew Research Center is one of the most well-known unbiased sources you can use to better understand key demographics and psychographics about your blog's target audience.
According to their about page, “Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan news group that educates the public about issues, attitudes, and trends shaping the world.
We conduct public opinion polling, demographic research, content analysis and other data-driven social science research. We do not take political positions.
Their site covers a wide range of topics relevant to a variety of different blogging niches, including topics such as:
- American politics
- Media and current affairs
- Social trends
- The internet and technology
- Sciences
Their research center is a valuable resource to help provide information on key demographics of your target audience and even provides helpful data points on their psychographic groups.
For example, the Pew Research Center recently published an article titled “ What we know about Gen Z so far “(in English) which details a lot of very useful information.
In this research article, the authors of this study cover statistics such as:
- The Racial and Ethnic Diversity of Generation Z
- The education levels of Generation Z
- The political views of Generation Z
- Gen Z's access to technology
How does this apply to you? Well, if your blog is mainly focused on content for this generation or if you hope to write relevant content for Gen Z, knowing where they spend their time online, how they will perceive your content will be extremely valuable information .
It's easy to get lost in the weeds when reviewing research, reports, and studies. Always focus on finding ideas that will help you on your journey to learning how to find your target audience and the ways you can best serve them from your blog.
8. Browse questions (and write answers) on Quora
Quora is one of my favorite places to find my target audience and interact with them directly, answering their most important questions.
In case you are unfamiliar with Quora , it's an online forum where people can ask questions about just about any topic. It's a great way to find your target audience and develop a deeper understanding of them because they ask the exact questions that are most relevant to them.
Quora is a goldmine of valuable blog post ideas, and the platform offers the opportunity to engage with your target audience.
This information only scratches the surface of what is possible to learn on Quora if you spend enough time snooping, listening, and doing your best to answer the questions your target audience asks.
9. Listen to podcasts and watch YouTube videos in your niche
Podcasts and YouTube videos are another great way to find your target audience and learn more about them.
On its own, YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in the world (behind parent company Google), and over a billion hours of videos are viewed on the platform every day . That's more than Netflix and Facebook videos, combined. To say YouTube is a valuable discovery platform for finding and engaging with your target audience is an understatement.
Admittedly, I have not yet invested enough time and effort into growing my Youtube channel for bloggers, but for having less than 20 public videos, attracting over 650 subscribers is pretty impressive in my opinion. There is so much potential for growth and more meaningful direct connection with your target audience on YouTube.
That being said, podcasts and video content can give you a clear indication of topical trends in your niche, what your target audience wants to know more about, and what is already being successfully covered in your niche. Just be sure to get your hands on the best podcast hosting that fits your budget if you decide to start your own podcast.
One of the best ways to to make known to your target audience involves interviewing on podcasts and collaborating with popular YouTube channels.
Unlike Pinterest, which no longer lets you see the popularity of a particular pin (unless it's yours), you can easily see the popularity of a YouTube video. The best YouTube influencer videos can have millions of views and have most likely been watched by many people in your target audience.
Knowing the popularity of a podcast isn't that simple, but you can find out how interesting a podcast is. For example, if you want to know the success of a podcast on Apple Podcasts (iTunes), there are three major indicators:
- Comments
- Notes
- Standings
Reviews are written by real people who listen to the podcast and feel compelled enough to give their opinion. They can give you useful insights into how people feel about a particular podcast (or set of topics), which is great if you're evaluating which topics you should cover on your own blog or podcast.
Ratings indicate how highly people have rated a podcast from 1 to 5 stars. The most listened to podcasts will also have a lot of ratings.
Ratings are another way to find the most listened to podcasts (and individual episodes) in your niche, and iTunes ranks podcasts in each category. There's no definitive way to know how iTunes ranks all the podcasts on their platform, but they do have the top podcasts broken down into each category. You can easily view the top-ranking podcasts in your niche and even see which episodes are getting the most traction for the show.
Once you find these popular podcasters and YouTube channels, you have a lot of options:
- Follow them and learn more about your shared target audience by viewing the content they post
- Reach out to them and see if you can get invited to their podcast (or co-produce a YouTube video) to pitch in front of their audience.
- Gather tangible ideas for blog topics, podcast episode ideas, and video topics you should cover
Strive to learn exactly what pieces of content work well with their audience, because those people are also part of your target audience. Since these podcasts and YouTube channels are in the same niche as you, their audience is most likely made up of the same people you hope to attract, so think about what a successful partnership with them might look like.
10. Talk to people interested in your niche
Another way to get to know your blog's target audience better is to contact them in person:
- Join clubs that encourage direct interaction with each other
- Attend conventions and conferences (even virtual ones can do the trick)
- Register for local events in your area
While you can do a lot to learn how to find your target audience online, nothing really compares to the lessons you can learn from speaking directly with people who share a passion for your niche or who are good candidates to learn. your experience in your field.
People who are enthusiastic about your niche will tell you the exact type of content that would be most useful to them. Bloggers spend a lot of time online in the digital world, but you can't deny the benefits of networking with people face to face. Whatever your niche, there's almost certainly some sort of event, convention, or club you can attend and learn about your target audience in person.
Create a blog for tattoo enthusiasts? Consider going to a tattoo convention.
Do you like blogging about comics?
It might be time to splurge on a trip to San Diego Comic-Con (or find a small comic book convention near you).
Do you have a blog in the maker or DIY space? Try to find a MakerFaire event which you can attend and meet potential readers in person.
Of course, you don't just have to go to the biggest events in the world to find out more about your blog's target audience. You can also join smaller circles of like-minded people in your city and if these groups don't already exist, take the initiative to start organizing one yourself!
Talk to these real people and open a dialogue about their most pressing needs. Find out what really drives them to have fun, and don't forget to tell them about your blog during those conversations.
11. Read books (and connect with authors) in your niche
Reading the best books in your niche is another way to find out more about your target audience.
Although you won't have a direct connection with your audience just by reading a book written about them, you will have a good understanding of the ideas most relevant to your target audience and should be able to come away with a fairly comprehensive set of topics to write in the hope of attracting readers
Bonus: How to Write More Useful Content (For Your Target Audience)
Once you've gone through the learning process of finding your target audience, the next (incredibly important) step is to create content that they'll want to read and are likely to benefit from. So what are the main things you should think about when writing impactful content for your target audience?
1. Understand their deepest concerns
The first and probably most important thing you can do as a blogger is to understand your target audience's most pressing pain points.
A concern is something that can cause difficulties, problems, or at least a challenge for your readers that they want to overcome. It can also be a simple problem with a simple solution that you can provide (via your blog content).
In your own niche, you need to identify the main pillars of concerns that you can begin to address, through helpful content.
2. Write in a way your target audience can relate to
Once you have a good understanding of what he need to cover on your blog, the next step is to write valuable content that your target audience can relate to.
Remember the example above about creating a gaming blog? Well, hanging out with other gamers and reading their threads allows you to enter their world (if you're not already a member of that community yourself) and see how they talk about the game. This will give you insight into the language of that niche.
In my niche, there are many blogging terms that experienced bloggers are familiar with. Here are some examples :
- Affiliate Marketing
- Hosting packages
- Blogosphere
- A / B test
- audio blog
- Avatar
- Analytical
- Alexa Rank
- SEO
- black link
- Keyword
- Link building
Either your readers will already be familiar with these words, or they will come to you with the aim of learning more about them. In any case, it is your responsibility to familiarize yourself with the most important concepts and verbiage of your niche, as well as to format your blog content in the best dissemination vehicle (written articles, videos, audio recordings or others) .
3. Write about topics that interest your target audience
Another benefit of really investing time in learning your target audience in depth is that you can create content that they will find really interesting.
One of the main things is to make sure you do keyword research to back up your assumptions about what your target audience is actively looking for solutions to. If you're not writing about the topics they want to learn more about, you're not giving them a compelling reason to come to your blog.
However, it is not always just about providing solutions to problems. Sometimes it's about entertaining and capturing the imagination of your audience. You should be able to share content with your readers, so they can be entertained while learning more about a topic they are passionate about.
4. Find useful topics that no one else in your niche covers
One of the most significant services you can do for your target audience is covering content they want that someone has yet to write (well) about.
Here are examples of blue ocean content topics, where you have the opportunity to really reach readers on underserved topics:
- Something new or recently trending in your niche
- An emerging topic that is coming and others haven't written much yet
- Something in your niche that has fallen through the cracks or tends to get overlooked
Sometimes you can discover these opportunities when you have personally searched for something with very few results. If so, your audience may very well want to know more, but just can't find the answers they crave.
Another way to find those more specialized content topics that probably aren't as competitive is to look at suggested searches (at the bottom of a Google search results page).
If you click on a related search term, you will be taken to a search page that only contains matching results…suggesting that this more specialized topic would be much less competitive to try and rank on a post on your blog
Find those topics that aren't covered enough, write in-depth (helpful) blog posts that answer their most pressing questions, and you'll be rewarded with traffic over time.
5. Write something much better than what exists
Along the same lines, you can take content that already exists on the internet and work hard to write something even better.
I can almost guarantee that there are dozens of topics in your niche that a thousand other bloggers have written 800-word posts on. In other words, the existing stable of content on the topic is a mile wide, but only an inch deep. You can take that same (time-tested) topic and then double, triple, or even quadruple the word count with a more comprehensive and impactful guide than anything out there today.
It is important to note that it is not just about writing content longer . You will need to create content that actually answers the questions your target audience is asking, in the best possible way. It's about having the expertise to deliver valuable content that has real substance and can rise above the rest of your industry.
What are the key elements of good blog writing?
- Write headlines that grab your audience's attention
- Use a blog post outline to organize your thoughts
- Write all original content
- Provide well-researched research
- Be specific in your writing
- Use your first-hand knowledge and expertise
- Offer practical advice
- Give the answers people are looking for
- Write relevant, engaging and interesting content
- Separate long blocks of text for easier reading
- Add images, videos, and graphics that make your content more engaging or better explain an important concept
- Be thorough and thorough in your writing
- Write content for your target audience
- End your blog posts with a clear call to action and a summary of the main points
Final Thoughts: Finding Your Target Audience Will Be Unique to You
When doing your target audience research, remember that your target audience will be somewhat unique.
Your blog peut be in an extremely narrow niche that attracts a very specific audience, or you can have a broad niche that attracts a wide range of different types of people. Either way, your audience will always be at least slightly different than another competing blog in your niche…because you are so unique.
Your journey to learn how to find your target audience is one piece of the puzzle, of course. But how you meet their needs is paramount.
Once you know more about who your target audience is and what they are passionate about, spend time writing impactful blog posts that they will find deeply valuable. Spend even more time during the writing process (and listening to their feedback) to make sure you're actually hitting your mark. goal blogging to be the most useful blogger in your niche.
What did I miss?
Have you found (more) creative ways to find your target audience?
What questions do you have that I haven't covered in this guide?
Even though I've been blogging here for many years, I'm still working to improve – and one of the best ways to do that is to get feedback from my audience.
