What Your Target Audience Expects From Your Content
Categorized in: Content
First thing’s first, when it comes to publishing content online, you need to remember who you are writing it for. Your primary target audience is prospects and current customers, not the search engines. Yes, it’s important to consider SEO and incorporate keywords naturally where you can but the content is really for the people that you want to learn more about your business. No matter what industry you are in or who your target audience members are, certain items have become standard when it comes to online content publication. Missing the mark in any of the following
Here’s what your target audience has come to expect:
Useful content
If your content isn’t useful to target audience members (answers a question, provides information, tells a relevant story, etc.), there’s really no point in writing it. Content shouldn’t be written just to fill a space or hit some quota that’s been imagined up. When you’re simply writing just to write, the quality suffers and your target audience will see right through that. These “fluff” pieces do absolutely nothing for your reputation. Actually, I take that back. They can actually harm your reputation. Instead, spend some time getting inside the minds of your target audience. What information would they find useful at every step of the buying cycle? What thought leadership content can you provide that will establish your writers (and business) as authorities in your niche? Keep the promotional content to a minimum and focus on what truly matters to your target audience to get in on their “good side”.
An appealing design
To start, let’s talk about mobile. Is your content mobile friendly? If not, it’s time for you to get on that and invest in a responsive website that makes all of your content mobile friendly, no matter what device someone is viewing it on. It doesn’t end there though. Take a look at the design of your website where your content is published. Is the design appealing? Does it match your brand? Is it modern? To be fair, this matters more for some target audiences than others. If your target audience is marketers, you better be on top of this. If it’s manufacturers, you might have a little more wiggle room. But it’s always best to err on the side of caution and update the design every few years as design trends change.
Ease of navigation
Going hand in hand with design, is your content easy to use? Just scrolling through text is one thing, but what do you want content readers to do next? Ideally one page of content should be viewed as the entrance to your site, not the final destination. Make it easy for visitors to browse the site and to convert. No matter how great the actual content is itself, a poor user experience is a turn off and it won’t get social shares or other “link love” that gives your content an added boost.
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