It used to be a time when writing for your blog was enough, but those days are over.
Is that a shocking statement to you?
Are you still writing for your blog?
Is there any other way to write to start with?
Well, yes.
In the past people would often write low value content to fill up the blank space on their blog page. As long as they made sure that it was filled with the right keywords, Google and other search engines would actually rank such content.
Yes, believe it or not, Google would rank such useless content, back then.
I used to write some of those articles, both for me and my clients, because that’s what we used to do back then. Internet marketing was still in its infancy, so to speak, and those things used to be OK and worked.
Today, however, times have changed, and not only you can’t write useless content overloaded with keywords anymore, neither for search engines, nor for readers, but you can’t just be writing for your blog either.
No.
Nowadays you need to be very specific on each of your posts, and you need to be writing with a purpose which is of course, your readers needs and wants.
But it goes even beyond that. You need to be writing with your reader/potential customer’s specific need in mind. One at the time.
Those specific needs and wants will always spring from the 4 basic needs that people have.
Let’s see what they are.
4 Basic Needs that you Must Address for Successful Results
If all you did was writing for your blog, you would be missing out on the most important thing.
Do you know what that it?
You would be missing out on the very purpose of your writing, which is to fill a need for your reader.
There are four basic areas that will provide you with all the material and ideas you will ever need to write great blog posts that will attract traffic to your blog, and convert into customers.
They are:
- Their desires
- Their goals
- Their fears
- Their frustrations
No matter what your business is about, and no matter what you are selling, you need to define what desires, goals, fears and frustrations your product or service is going to help your potential customer with.
One thing is certain is that if you fail to get that, and all you do is keep writing about your product or service’s features, you are going to be boring to your reader and potential customer, and you are going to fail to attract them.
What’s going to happen is that they will skip you by and find that one business owner, that one blogger that does the same thing you do, but who has found a way to talk to people in a language that speaks to them by writing with one of those four fundamental concerns in mind.
Exploit the Desires of you Readers to Improve you Content Quality
What does it mean to exploit the desires of your reader/market?
First, let’s see what are some of the synonyms of the word “exploit.”
Exploit means, to utilize, to harness, to capitalize on and to tap into.
So when you exploit the desires of you target market (your reader/your potential customer) you can utilize, harness, capitalize on or tap into such desires to create content that attract and seduce them, because it will fill a strong need called desire.
For example, desires of your readers can be:
- Making more money
- Become a better parent
- Be better spouse
- Landing more customers
- Better caring for their pets
- Improving their life
- Improving their relationships
- Finding the perfect partner
- Quitting their job
- Starting their own business
- Traveling the world. Etc…
Those are only a handful of desire examples that people have, there are thousands more out there.
Before you start writing content for your own specific business blog, you need to make a list of at least 20 main desires that your target market has.
The longer your list, the better.
Take your time building your list over days, weeks or even months. Just add to your list as you come up with ideas.
Think about it and write them down somewhere you have access to every time you need to write a new blog post.
If you need help creating your market needs list, you can contact me HERE. I provide such service for my clients.
Show your Readers that you can be a Major Influence in Helping them Reaching their Goals
A goal is that link between your reader and their achieved desire.
For example, if you belong to my own target market, something that you may want is to write attractive blog posts to get more customers. This is your goal, in order to achieve your big desire which is getting more customers to have a successful business, and make more money.
Goals are less attractive, in way, than desires are, because goals are a “process” that one needs to go through in order to get to the desired result.
But if you have good enough writing skills, you could show your readers that you can provide them help to achieve the goals that will lead to what they really want.
For example, goals that your readers may have could be:
- Losing weight to achieve the desire of (being skinny, attractive and healthy).
- Getting eye laser surgery to achieve the desire of (seeing without glasses).
- Purchasing a Kindle to achieve the desire of (reading tons of book easily).
- Building a custom kitchen to achieve the desire of (cooking in a wonderful spacious and beautiful environment).
- Write a book to achieve the desire of (achievement, and promote themselves as an expert).
- Having a website to achieve the desire of (introducing themselves to their market in a professional manner, and attracting more customers that way).
Making more Money, can be both a desire and a goal, since money is not an end, but a means to an end, so when writing about the topic of money, both discussions would fit in such case.
I’ve chosen very different goal examples here, to show you that not only there are many different niche goals out there, but how this can apply to you as a business owner and blogger, no matter what you are selling.
Here again, write down a list of goals that your potential customer may have, and you will always be writing content that rocks.
Appease your Readers Fears
Fear is the most common aspect that either prevents people to do something or make them fail.
Once you’ve understood what the fears of your readers are you can better address them, and help them understand that such fear is really just a thought that most likely exist only in their head.
Some fears that your reader may have sound like this in their head:
- How should I handle my new clients?
- What if I’m not prepared?
- What if I get robbed?
- What if I came out of surgery with problems?
- What if I found myself alone?
- What if I can’t measure up to this new job?
- What if traveling alone was dangerous?
- What if my order was not delivered?
- What if I were a bad parent?
- What if I failed at blogging?
- What if I didn’t know what to write about?
- What if I didn’t know how to use social media platforms?
- What if people could tell that I don’t know what I’m doing in my blog?
…etc…
Here again, make a list of all the fears you can think of that specifically relates to your customers.
Create content that can appease such fears, and your blog post will be very successful and a sure ticket to your popularity with you market.
Show your Readers the Way to Eliminate their Frustrations
Frustrations happen when you feel that you’ve been doing everything you were told, or know how, but still things are not happening the way you want them to be.
There are thousands of frustrations that anyone on any market has, so no matter what business you’re in, your readers are bound to have some of them.
Here is a short list of frustrations they may have.
- Lack of traffic to their site
- Lack of new customers
- Lack of referrals from present customers
- Lack of time to improve… in whatever area they need to improve
- Lack of skills
- Lack of tools
- Lack of money
- Lack of ideas
- Lack of connections
- Lack of resources
- Lack of knowledge
- Lack of self-confidence… etc…
In the same way you’ve made a list of your market’s desires, goals and fears, make a list of their frustrations as it relates to your specific business, and write content that will help them appease such frustrations.
Helping your potential customer with his or her frustrations may be the strongest point, the strongest subject matter, where you could show them some sympathy and offer them help as well as being regarded as an expert, while using your writing skills and gently leading them to your product or service.
At the end of the day…
Remember, people don’t want a drill, they want a hole.
What they want might not be what you think they want.
This is why by making these four lists of your market’s desires, goals, fears, and frustrations you can start to better understand where they’re coming from, and be better able to speak to them in a way that will seduce and attract them.
In the process you will be better able to get more traffic, more shares on social media, more attention and more customers at the end of the road.
Your Turn…
So, what do you think? Any feedback, or questions you may have are welcome.
Hi Sylviane,
This is a great post and you definitely shared the frustrations a lot of people have.
I remember the horrible advice a lot of people were given early on when they started their blogs. Just write about anything you want, do you remember that too? I thought to myself, what’s wrong with these people! Why would they tell them to do that unless they’re just hobby bloggers which most of them weren’t. I guess they wanted them to hone their writing skills but even so you need to stay on topic. Over time everyone improves.
Although I haven’t necessarily been off topic, I have known for a long time that I wasn’t necessarily writing for my ideal target audience. I was writing more for those eager to “do it themselves”. While I love helping people I can’t survive if no one wants to hire me. So that as well is SO important when coming into the blogging scene.
Now take the advice you just shared here in this post such as the four basic needs that people need to consider in order to have success, you have a winning combination and then it’s just a matter of time.
The blogging arena is getting very crowded these days so we have to be able to stand out from the rest all while satisfying our audience. If we can’t accomplish this then we’ll continue to see poor results. No one wants that.
Great share Sylviane and hope you have another fabulous week. I’m sure you will my dear. I’m off to share this post.
~Adrienne
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Hi Adrienne,
I’m glad you liked my post.
Well, like you, before while my posts weren’t off topic either but they were not really talking to my market, but I’ve started to go another direction few months ago. Now I write to my target market. Period. And I don’t care if it affects my comments, because while it’s nice to have them, I can’t just blog for comments. I have to blog for my market, and they are not the same people for me.
Yes, I remember the days where some people used to tell beginners to blog about anything, but that was really dumb, even back then, if you ask me.
I’m back to England and just published my first Smashwords book which they also make available on several book selling platforms, so I’m really exacted. While it’s a personal development book it can serve both my niches. I will be publishing a post about this on Wednesday.
Thank you for coming Adrienne, and you have a great rest of the day.
You should write for your readers. They influence the tone and structure of the write up. Additionally, what and how you report information may vary depending on the audience.
I couldn’t agree more with your point of view. Most especially with the 4 basic needs, the desires, goals, fears and their frustrations. It is also helpful if you will jot down what your audience already knows, what they need to know, why they need to know it, and how you can help them.
By doing so, you can engage readers and magnet more readers. All in all, you’ve shown us some powerful tricks to grab reader’s attention and it is easy to comprehend why we should write for our readers not for our blog.
All in all very valuable and there are many tricks and ideas we can learn from here.
metz invites you to read..Does Your Email Marketing Suck? Here Are 10 Reasons Why
Hi Metz,
Excellent point, thank you for adding this.
Thanks for dropping by.
Hey Sylviane,
Great post here.
It’s completely about writing for your audience and writing about information that they want to read about and not what you “think” you know what they want to know.
That’s a mistake many people make. And it’s costing them.
That’s why, I make sure to do some research on the topics I write about before I write them. No sense wasting my time writing about something no one else wants to read, now is it?
This was a great post and you shared some really great advice. Particularly when appeasing the readers fears. Those questions are so true and are asked all the time.
Great post here, Sylviane. Have a great day.
– Andrew
Andrew M. Warner invites you to read..[Case Study] Email List Building Strategies That Increased Subscribers 43%
Hi Andrew,
I certainly appreciate the feedback from such a great blogger as yourself. You don’t need to say, your posts are well researched indeed, and I love them. You are really working hard on each one of them and your results sure show that.
I’m very glad you liked this post and thanks for coming.
Overall I agree, but… (you know me so I have to say it lol)
The problem I see is people writing things they obviously don’t know anything about. It’s hammered into too many bloggers that they should write in particular niches to make money without realizing that they just might not have anything new to say, or might run out of things to say at a certain point.
To me, a blog is meant to have content; otherwise, why have a blog? So, if it’s me and I absolutely need a post because I haven’t written anything in a long while (not that we’re talking about me, just in general…) then, if I’ve done well in at least communicating with a certain audience, I feel it’s okay to go off the reservation here and there and be a bit more communicative and personable. I tend to believe that in this rush to educate and “write for the readers” that sometimes personality is left out of the sandwich. Who wants to eat boring sandwiches (sure, now I’m hungry lol)?
Yes, educate, inform and entertain; sometimes, entertain might be all someone has in between educating and informing others. 🙂
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Hi Mitch,
Sure I agree with you, at times it’s OK in some instances to let lose a little, but for my clients (businesses that have a blog) it’s not as common to do this as maybe a blogger who is on his on his or her own. In the case of big blogs behind big businesses there is much less room for that.
But I get what you’re saying, I do that myself as well, just not so much for my clients, unless they would really want to.
Thanks for your input, and have a wonderful day.
Hi Sylviane,
I totally buy your viewpoint.I’d love to write to enrich my readers with the knowledge and relevant information.
I’m having an ecommerce website and I plan to write a post related to food and humor where readers can enjoy food related humor stories in different formats.
Thanks for your lovely advice.
Sunil
Sunil Suri invites you to read..Falphool Launched
Wow Sylviane… What an awesome post.
You are spot on; we should all strive to come up with posts that would resonate with our audience and lead them to take a particular action.
In other words, we should always ask ourselves, what do we want to achieve through this post?
Is it to teach our audience how to execute a particular task?
Or just share our post?
Or better still to make them see the need to hire us?
There should be a problem we are solving in every post and one way I do that is by surveying my audience from time to time.
I ask them to tell me one thing they are having the most challenge with at the moment, then I’d take their responses and turn into blog posts.
Also, I try to write in a conversational tone; I write using “You” and “I”; that helps to build engagement.
That’s my two cents… You did a nice job with this post Sylviane
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Hi Sylviane,
When I started blogging it looks as though I caught the wave of high-value content just as it started to reach it’s peak. I read blog posts about the importance of having high-value content so I didn’t start out with basic blog posts.
I usually follow a simple rule when I put a blog post together. It’s the who, what, when, where, why. I try to keep these elements to make sure my post has everything it needs for my readers.
I love the 4 elements you shared here…perhaps I can incorporate yours into mine and reach a whole new level with my content :).
Thank you for putting this post together. I gathered a lot of ideas here. I’ll definitely pass this on! I hope you’re having a great time in your travels!
Take care,
Cori
Hi Sylviane!
Great tips on writing blog content!
That is one of the best piece of advice I have heard in a while, when it comes about building a successful blog online.
I could not agree more!
You have to learn about your readers, as much as possible, and do your best to write in a way they really feel you are having a one on one conversation with them.
One good technique I like to use, when writing a new blog post, is imagining a friend in front of me. I imagine a friend in front of me, who I am talking to, explaining what I want them to learn.
I, then, write out what I’m saying out loud. If you saw me writing a new blog post for my blog, and did not know about this technique, you would think to yourself; “what’s wrong with him!” … haha
Because I would actually talk out loud while I write. It is because I am using my imagination to act as if I’m talking to a friend explaining a certain topic.
This helps me connect with my readers a lot better. I even get some people tell me that they feel like I’m talking directly to them when they read my post. Like they feel the connection with me.
And that is because I use this simple creative technique!
Plus, when you picture a “friend”, while writing your content, you would do your best to explain things the best way possible.
Just think about it ….
If you want to teach your friend how to do something … you will do your best to explain things very well. And you would probably use a different type of language and slang, to get your message across.
Your readers are your friends!
So, you should treat them like friends through your writing and any type of communication you use.
I also use this technique for videos and even audio!
Just my 2cents here! 🙂
Your tips here are awesome! … I just wanted to share what has been working well for me, to write content that my readers love!
Thanks for sharing this value, Sylviane!
keep up the great work!
Have a fantastic weekend! 😀
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Hello and welcome to my blog, Freddy,
No, you’re not crazy, because I do speak out loud as I write at times too, and I’m not surprised that your readers are telling you you are speaking to them as a result of that, because you are.
Nowadays our content can’t just be a one way street bunch of rubbish, as they say here in England, where I am now 🙂 it has to be more of a discussion, a dialogue and deliver good stuff.
Thank you so much for taking the time to leave some valuable input.
Hey Sylviane,
I couldn’t agree more with you. It is best to write for readers rather than writing for blogs.
Gone are the days when writing for blogs or search engines make any sense.
The Internet is now geared towards solving people’s problems and writing for the interest of the readers is ideal in achieving that.
The tasks of exploiting the desires of the readers, helping the readers achieve their goals, appeasing the fears of the readers and eliminating the frustrations of the readers are spot-on in using content to solve problems for the reader.
I am glad to stumble upon this article. It is highly informative as other powerful contents you are used to share!
Having read this article in kingged.com where it was voted, I left the above comment on it!
Hi Sunday,
I’m sure glad you stumbled upon my post as well and enjoyed this info.
Thank you so much for coming by and you have a great rest of the day.
HI SYLVIANE Mam
I really like this post. I am now introduced with the faults I had in my articles before and I am now committed to write for my readers only.
You wrote that write. Readers are looking for something which interests them and they probably like to listen a cock and bull story. I am now going to my room and will concentrate on the points you’ve given here.
I don’t know how good I am at writing but am damn sure that I will be writing much better from tomorrow. Thanks for sharing this amazing post with me.
have a nice day
Hi Vashishtha,
I’m so glad you stumbled upon this information about writing for your readers and are ready to use it in your writing.
Thank you for coming and for your comment.
Really great post about audience. I think of writing for my audience in two ways.
1) The class. Come in, I’ll teach you something. I have experience in marketing so let me show you the way. This type of blog post is informational and full of learning. I use it to get out many tips & my strategies on marketing.
2) The conversation. Sometimes I just want to talk to you audience and get to know them and let them get to know me. I may post about marketing in a way that isn’t as much education as stories and interesting experiences.
With these two styles I always know who my target audience is and I try to remember the tone of these two types of posts can be quite different.
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Hi Sylviane
I love this post and you simplified the process for writing for the audience.
I agree that the best written articles are those that appeal to the emotion and desires of their audience which you have so brilliantly mentioned.
Thanks for sharing this article. Have a swell week.
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Hi Ikechi,
I’m so glad you enjoyed your reading and can see the truth to to that.
Thanks so much for coming by and sharing my post.
You have a wonderful day ahead!
Hi,
I have enjoyed your article .I found it really interesting to read .You have manage and placed everything on exact position .So well written and nice work done .Keep smiling 🙂
Hi Jerry,
Thanks for your comment and very glad you enjoyed the read.
Have a great weekend.
~Sylviane