It’s a fact: If you can’t describe your blog readers, you can’t convert them into loyal fans and customers. Try to answer these questions: Who do you think should read your blog? What type of content do they want to read? How are you going to satisfy their needs? Answers to all these questions will help you come up with a frame of reference for creating reader profile or personas for your blog. Don’t worry if this term is new to you. In this post today, I will not only touch upon the basics, but will also share how you can create an amazing reader profile for your blog!
Reader Profile: Definition
Let’s start with the basics. A reader profile in the context of a blog refers to creating personas of people you are trying to target or those who are already reading your blog. Audience personas are real or fictional descriptions of the readers who regularly visit your blog or website.
This description of reader profile includes details like:
- Demographic origin of your readers – For ex.: New Delhi, India
- Lifestyle of your readers – for ex.: university graduate / professional / entrepreneur / mom at home
- Their interests and hobbies – for ex.: learning how to blog / marketing / designing / coding / teaching
- Their difficulties and challenges – for ex.: lack of resources / inexperience / technical know-how challenges
- Why do they read your blog?
Why does your blog need a reader profile?
Creating audience personas or profile of your readers is beneficial for your blog because of the following reasons:
1) It gives you a direction
One of the key benefits of having a reader profile for your blog is that it streamlines your efforts. When you picture a character from your reader personas, you know exactly what type of information they are looking for? What are their challenges and what do they expect from your blog? As a result, you will find it hard to digress from the type of content that your readers would want to read on your blog.
2) It helps you stay focused and motivated
When you build your blog around its reader profile, it helps you stay focused and motivated. You naturally begin to write blog posts keeping in mind the needs, problems, and challenges faced by your readers. This inspires you to maintain your focus and motivation in serving your readers with the best possible content.
3) Unlock fresh ideas and opportunities
It happens. Sometimes we all run out of good topics or ideas regarding what to write on our blog. Now when you think from the point of view of your readers, it gets easy. Take a re-look at the reader profile and think about the challenges and problems faced by your ideal blog readers. You will definitely come-up with interesting new ideas and opportunities to cover on your blog.
4) Helps you attract advertisers
These days, advertisers are looking for quality of demographic data so that they may target the right audience on a website. For example – Advertising a T-shirt brand on a fashion blog will make more sense than advertising it on a wedding photography blog. Why? Because the demography of readers on the fashion blog will favor it more than that on the wedding photography blog. When you show all these demographic details right in your reader profile or personas, you instantly impress the advertiser and improve your chances of making money from your blog.
How to create an awesome reader profile? (with templates and examples)
Now that you have understood the meaning of reader profiles and why they are so important for your blog, let’s now learn how to create one for your blog. For your convenience, I have designed an infographic based on which you can easily create good audience personas for your blog…
Ideal template for creating a reader profile: Infographic
Display this infographic on your website by using the code below (attribution is necessary):
<p><strong>Please include attribution to buddinggeek.com with this graphic.</strong><br /><br /><a href=’https://buddinggeek.com/reader-profile-for-blog’><img src=’https://buddinggeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Ideal-Template-For-A-Reader-Profile.png’ alt=’infographic template for creating a reader profile’ width=’800px’ height=’2000px’ border=’0′ /></a></p>
Good examples of Reader Profiles to inspire your creativity
Oliveira, Creative Writer
Oliveira, 25, from Vancouver, Canada works as a freelance writer and full-time blogger. She did his Masters in Journalism from the University of British Columbia. Her interest areas are creative writing, storytelling, and digital marketing. She admires mother nature and tries to bring the essence of elements to every piece of her writing.
Oliveira started her own blogging journey as a creative writer during October last year. She aspires to become a famous blogger but her fear of competition and technical challenges of maintaining a good blog keeps her from realizing her full potential.
She finds the tips and resources on Budding Geek blog very helpful in overcoming these challenges and is finally gaining traction on her new blog!
Raghav, Software Engineer
Raghav, 30, from Mumbai, India is an avid reader of Budding Geek. He is a computer science engineer who is currently working with IBM as a software engineer.
However, deep inside his heart, Raghav has a natural love for gadgets and internet technology. He has recently bought his new Apple Watch and embraces the way technology is rapidly changing the world we live in.
By reading the technology and tech how-to section of the Budding Geek blog, Raghav is able to satisfy his curiosity for the latest and greatest digital life hacks!
Frequently Asked Questions:
To find your ideal reader, look for the intersection between the topics covered on your blog and the interests/problems/challenges of the people who read your blog.
Google Analytics is the first place to look for demographic data for creating audience personas on your blog. In Google Analytics, navigate this way: Audience Report ➡ Demographics & Geography.
Ideally 1 for a niche blog and not over 3 for other type of blogs. Having too many reader profiles will create confusion to you and your readers.
Questions / Feedback?
I hope this post was useful in sparking your creativity to help you build amazing reader profiles on your blog. What do you think? Do you have more tips to share? If you still have some questions or doubts, feel free to drop your comments below.
Photo Credits: @holliver & @aejazmemon from Unsplash
Loved the infographic. And of-course, this article!
Thank you Jose 🙂
Thank you so much for sharing this post. Your examples are truly inspiring. Do you recommend putting reader personas inside media kit?
Absolutely, why not?
Hi Abhishek.
Great Post!
Your reader profile examples look so lively and real that it creates an impression as though they are your real blog readers. A focused audience targeting and your creativity is the perfect recipe for creating really good reader profiles.
I totally enjoyed reading your post. Please keep posting more of such content.
Regards,
Amandah
Thank you so much, Amandah 🙂
I first thought reader profiles have to be based on real people who visit your blog. After reading your article I have realized that it can be either real or imaginary. Great examples! Shared your post on Twitter 🙂
Totally agreed. Reader profiles are of so much help especially during the bad times in your blogging career. They spark positivity and remind you that there still exist a class of readers who seriously care about you and your blog. It shapes your ideas, your thought process, and you begin to think from the eyes of those reader personas…The examples that you’ve shown look bright and brilliant. I’m now motivated to create some reader profiles for my own blog after reading this post 🙂
Thanks for the comment Kiara. Surely, go ahead 🙂