DailyBlogr - Blogging: How to Discover What Your Audience Really Wants

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To a lot of people, finding out what their audience wants is a big deal.

They’ll run tests, view heatmaps of their site, perform in person studies and at times, still not provide what their audience is really looking for. Despite me writing an article with some of these suggestions, I’m a big believer in the idea that most of the time, your audience doesn’t really know what they want. That is, until you give it to them. For that reason, I like to really focus on what I put out to the world, rather than what I get back, and interact in the communities where I believe my audience are. I can then gauge the work I’m doing by the response to what I’m producing. Only then do I think that you should start testing and tweaking, to help your audience get exactly what they’re looking for.

My best blog posts and my biggest websites have not been things that people asked me to write or create specifically, but ideas I had that I thought my audience would like, and I was right. However, using some of the methods I’m going to share below, I have found topic ideas that I want to share, and I know readers are looking for, and made tweaks to my website that have both increased pageviews and reader engagement.

Use a Google Custom Search Engine

For the last 4 weeks, I had a Custom Search Engine (“CSE” from now on) from Google in the sidebar of my blog. I believe search functionality is important, but right now I don’t think it is an absolute necessity for my site as I only have 30 (albeit very long) articles. Using your current Google account, you can get the code for the search box and integrate it into your site in a number of ways. You can even change lots of colour settings so that it blends in nicely with your site design. The great thing about this is that you can link it to Google Analytics to find exactly what people are searching for in this box and which pages they are clicking for that query. Even if you don’t use Google Analytics, you can find the most common search terms by logging into the CSE admin panel online. This has given me some great post ideas and allowed me to really understand my audience, without asking them for anything directly.

Check Pages with the Lowest Bounce Rate

It makes sense that if you have posts that people are clicking on and leaving very quickly, that’s not what your readers are interested in. It also makes sense that if some posts have a low bounce (staying on the site for longer) rate, that’s the type of content people like to read. The focus of the content isn’t always the best indicator of why the bounce rate is low. I also recommend you look at:

• The length of the content readers are enjoying
• The style of the post (text / images / video) and whether it provided action points, shared news or just gave advice
• Whether you had a lot of outbound links on the posts
• Whether you had a lot of internet links on the posts
• The source of traffic (Stumbleupon traffic, for example, will usually always increase your bounce rate)

All of these things will give you a good idea as to the type of content that your audience is looking for. From there you can provide more of it.

Monitor Social Media Engagement

Do you know which of your blog posts are the most popular? Do you know which type of posts are getting you the most tweets? Do you know how many saves to Delicious your last list post managed to pick up? I do. And I do, because I care about traffic from large social media portals and providing more content that my audience wants to share. First of all, I use the Backtype plugin for Wordpress which tells me exactly how many tweets each of my posts are getting when I look at the post (which increases the use of the feature, as well). Secondly, I can head on over to Delicious and type in “site:www.viperchill.com” (substitute for your domain) and find out exactly how many people are saving each of my posts. You’ll also find people leaving mini-reviews on Delicious, which is excellent feedback that isn’t coming to you directly. I’m currently using a service called Postrank which emails me lots of cool information like this on a daily basis, but it has a monthly fee so won’t be for everyone. If you don’t know the types of posts that people are sharing, then you’re missing out on great information that can help you write more viral content in the future.

Use Google Forms to Capture Post Suggestions

I had this idea a few days ago and whilst I have not implemented it myself, can see it being a great way for your audience to quickly give you article ideas that you can monitor. Google Forms is a tool in Google Docs (and Apps) that easily allows you to set-up feedback forms that can then send data directly to a spreadsheet, also in Google Docs. My idea is simply that you set-up a one field form and grab the HTML code to add it into your blog sidebar. From there, simply add some text along the lines of “Like [site name]? We want to make your experience here better. Please tell us the most valuable article we could write for you in the form below!” Because this data goes directly into a spreadsheet, you can easily analyse it and find the most common suggestions. You can then really give your audience what they’re looking for.

Run a 3 Question, Reader Survey

I say a 3-question reader survey, because people get carried away with asking far too many questions to their audience when they hear suggestions like this. The extra options usually just scare away anyone who would have been happy to give feedback. Not only does a survey with a lot of questions put people off, it will also give you a lot of feedback that you really don’t need. When I owned PluginID, I ran a reader survey that just asked these questions:

• In one or two sentences, why do you read PluginID?
• What topics would you like to see me write about?
• What do you think is the main thing I can help people with?

That’s it. Unlike blog comments, I also allowed the submissions to be completely anonymous and made providing an email address optional. You may think this opened me up to spam and trolls, but there was not one immature entry in the 150+ replies that the survey received in just 48 hours. I once again used Google Forms for this and instantly had a whole host of posts ideas. I believe that connecting on different levels like this creates a stronger bond between you and your readers.

Two Additional Bonus Tips

I find that I’m able to put my own spin on a lot of topics, so I like to think I’ve shared a number of new ideas for you to try here, rather than give the generic advice that usually comes with this topic. My two bonus suggestions are a little generic, but they can give you great feedback.

• 1. Start a Poll – Now and then I like to run a sidebar poll and see what people are most interested in. Surprisingly, every time I do this, there is an unexpected clear favourite. For example, you may want to run a poll with 4 different post ideas and say “which would you like me to write next?” The results may be completely different to what you expect.
• 2. Allow Posts to Be Rated – Depending on your audience, they may be far more inclined to rate articles rather than leave comments or link to them. If your site is attractive to the “youtube crowd” or you’re not really a text-based blog, then this may be a better way to get feedback on your work.

As I stated earlier, I’m all for going with what I think an audience wants and building a crowd who loves what I love. If you tweak your work so much just to please others, you’ll be all over the place and lose the flow (and love?) for your work. I think you should use these as an added extra to help you provide more value to your audience, but don’t allow them to completely overhaul your strategy and direction.

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