The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
April 2008, Volume 7, Issue 4

Target Audience: Searching for Understanding

by Kathleen Pitcher, Client Service Manager, iProspect

Have you ever told a joke to a group of people you didn’t know? Doing so can be risky. There’s a good chance you might misread your audience, and not get the effect you hoped for. In fact, some of them might very well walk away. And no one wants to make that faux pas.

Well the same holds true for optimizing your website. Search marketers need to understand who their target audience is prior to launching their search campaign, or risk losing qualified traffic and revenue.

The Reasons
Understanding your audience has its benefits. First, it’ll prevent you from spinning your wheels or throwing money out the window from initiatives that miss the mark. Second, knowing who is most likely to visit your site will also help you develop messaging that will appeal to them.

The Rewards
And what comes with the right messaging and the right keywords? Qualified traffic and a greater chance of increasing online sales.

The Resources
So how do you find out who your target audience is? Fortunately, you don’t have to spend a lot of money on market research; there are a variety of options that can help.

Your website analytics program should be one of the first places you turn. It can help you determine how people are finding your site, and what keywords they’re using. It can also inform you about where your visitors are coming from in regard to both websites and geography (e.g. state or country).

But beyond analytics, your competitors’ websites can also tell you a lot about your audience. You’d be wise to visit them, and gain an understanding of the audience they’re targeting, and what they’re doing to rank in the search engines. If you’re not sure of who your competitors are, type in relevant keyword queries in the search engines to see what sites come up in the top positions.

Online surveys provide another means to discover who your target audience is. By leveraging your current user base, and providing them with an incentive for their time, you can ask them detailed questions that will get you that much closer to discovering more about who frequents your site most often.

The Results
Overall, when it comes to search, failing to understand your target audience is no joke. Rather, gaining that understanding is fundamental to launching a successful search engine marketing campaign that’s focused on the right demographic. In the end, not only will it help produce qualified traffic and increase online sales, it will also help you avoid making a faux pas that could cause your audience to walk away. For good.

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The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article: April 2008, Volume 7, Issue 4

Target Audience: Searching for Understanding

The Search Marketing Advisor Newsletter Article:
April 2008, Volume 7, Issue 4