Reaching the Heart of the Reader
Today’s mantra for high visibility on the web is “content, content, content!” Anyone creating a web site is highly advised to fill their site with meaningful and relevant content, and regularly add to it so that visitors are engaged, and more likely to return, and most importantly more likely to purchase your product or service, or more of it.
The above will go a long way to rate a site high in the search engine rankings. But the next key question becomes, “Will potential qualified prospects read it?” Will the messages hit home? Will they be more motivated to buy, or buy more?
To satisfy those questions, there is only one answer: you must learn as much as you can about your potential audience–their needs, wants, desires, hopes, dreams and anything else that might be remotely relevant to what you are communicating. There is something on the order of a natural law in the statement that the better you know your readers, the more relevant your content will be to them.
For a simple exercise, take a look at people you already know well–for example, members of your own family. You would probably have a pretty good idea of something you could write that would interest them, that they would probably read. Why? Because you know them intimately, know their interests, know what they might respond to.
Now take a look at your web site’s potential audience. While you can’t be expected to know them as well as you know your own family, you should certainly know them at least as well as you know your acquaintances, if not your friends.
The above is mandatory whether or not you are writing your own content. In fact, as a freelance writer, the first thing I want to know about any company that hires me is, “What can you tell me about your audience?” I want to know as much as possible. If my client doesn’t know, no amount of intensely clever wordsmithing on my part is going to cause that audience to read the content, or reach for a product or service.
Of course, that knowledge will also go a long way with your sales staff and anyone else who deals with the public from your company. It is truly pure gold.
Now, how can you get to know that audience? Very crucial question, and that will be the subject of another post in the near future.
If you would like my help in reaching the heart of the reader, please contact me.