Whether you are a site owner with a very narrow audience our you seem to not even have defined niche, establishing your perfect avatar is vital.
And I mean literally writing out the life details of this fictitious person you have created to be your perfect reader.
Maybe it is based on someone you know.
Maybe it’s a mirror image of you right here and now.
Maybe it’s someone completely made up in your imagination.
Doesn’t matter. But the details do!
Details & Demographics you should know about your perfect blog reader
It doesn’t matter if you’re launching a new site or trying to create better vision for the digital space you already hold. Creating your very perfect reader profile is important.
Because here’s the thing, you can study your Google Analytics until you’re blue in the face, but if the demographics don’t reflect who you’re trying to target, you’re likely spinning your wheels trying to figure out how to get your content to stick and ultimately take off.
And if you don’t know what they like and are looking for you can’t even begin to design your blog let alone write for them.
Read more about structuring your blog for SEO.
How old is this person?
Narrow down which age bracket is most important for you to target and then choose an age within it.
Yes, a specific age.
Knowing to a T how old your perfect audience is makes a difference. For example, someone born in 1950 versus someone born in 1963 have very different lives but are both baby boomers.
One watched humanity go into space for the first time, the other was not born quite yet.
This is no different with any generation, especially fast-paced millennials. One remembers getting a computer when it was still a big deal and the other was only a year old when the internet went live.
Where does your perfect audience live?
This goes beyond just a geographic place. It’s about understanding where someone is in there life as a whole. Defining a region helps understand their needs, but knowing if they rent or own their home also makes a difference.
It changes how they perceive and spend their money as well as their needs as a whole.
Whether we like it or not, our lives revolve around where and how we live. Someone who rents doesn’t have the same needs as a homeowner, and the two of them don’t have the same needs as a landlord.
What is the home life and work life of your avatar?
Married? Single? Dating? Divorced?
Kids? Trying to conceive? Grandkids? None and never want any?
What’s the work situation? Are they working from home, not working, or spending 70 hours in an office everyday? Do they come home tired and have no time to read 1000 word articles, but can skim 300 words that are helpful? Or maybe they’re stressed and need to binge read everything you have ever written.
I think you’re starting to see that every tiny detail impacts how we engage with and interact with the websites we visit. And why it’s so vital to how we plan the minute details of our own marketing.
How does this person spend their free time?
Are they a do-nothing kind of person, adventurous, like to shop, or just want to stay home playing games with the family?
Is screen time part of their free time? Are they viewing your site as a problem solving avenue or as a retreat and get-away?
What are your readers looking to get out of your site & what makes them share it and keep coming back?
So herein lies the ultimate key to building your audience. Do they share because it’s helpful? Do they share with friends and family because it elicits emotion? Or something else?
Read more about building an invested audience.
You can actually define a perfect blog reader and target that audience while simultaneously working to build a secondary audience.
For instance, I write for older Millennial moms but the content I write I expect them to share it with their husbands and their parents because it’s applicable to fatherhood and grandparenting. So if I plan out a few articles geared directly towards grandparents only or fathers only, it’s a perfect overlap with the invested readership I already have.
How to design and structure your blog based on your target audience
Now that you have considered and written out who you’re writing for, it’s important to visualize what they want to see in design and not just content. I believe knowing your audience is great for content, but it’s also important in appearance.
Choose an appropriate font.
Bubbly and girly fonts aren’t appropriate for manly websites just like thin, small versions of a traditional font aren’t appropriate for an aging audience.
For this site, I have chosen a bold font for headings that conveys confidence and even authority at times while I have stuck with a very traditional body font that also puts me on the same playing field as the average reader.
What emotion(s) should your color scheme elicit?
This I think is one of the most important ways you need to use your avatar’s preferences to shape your website design. If you understand what you want your reader to feel and how you want them to respond to what you’re doing, colors actually have a profound effect on our minds.
Can you imagine Nickelodeon having a purple or gray logo? Does it make you feel the same as the bright and cheery orange?
For this site, I have chosen yellow and blue. They convey optimism and trust.
Other things to consider when designing with a reader in mind
- How will you set up navigation for your ideal reader?
- Is your logo appealing to them?
- Does your content match your design?
- How can you alleviate the top stresses of your ideal reader whether through content, design, book and course offerings, or simplicity of site use?
How are you marketing to your target audience? And what will you change going forward?
P.S. My avatar’s name is Kate, she is 28 and has two kids and is trying for a third. She works from home and shares podcasts with her husband to listen to on his commute to work each day. (Just to give you a snippet!)
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Nina
Great post! Will put these ideas to use! Thanks.