Who Are Your Blog Readers?

It's been an eventful week and while reading the blogs of people I respect online (and it ain't that many let me assure you!), there was a post Darren has on Problogger that still gives me sleepless nights.

How To Build Community On Your Blog. Have you noticed there are no longer count chicklets on The Solo Gazette? For some odd reason, from 500 readers December 2008 to 8 in January 2009, the thing stopped working.

What does that have to do with you?
Knowing who your visitors are streamlines your ability to give them exactly the information they are looking for. On your blog, it's critical in making your messages relevant to the interests of your readers.

Chicklets, Widgets, Talking Characters are nice little touches but in and of themselves does not sell your products or services. People who come to your site or blog have specific interests in common.

For example, parents of newborns may come to read how to get their baby to sleep through the night but the same information holds no interest for parents dealing with the 'terrible twos'. Yes, both groups are parents but that's where the commonality ends.

Darren recommends 8 strategies for building 'community' with your blog and after reading it I thought how it could effectively cross-over to your website.

• 1. Ask Questions of your visitors. Most people hate those 'unblockable' pop overs, but why not add a short survey like the one from the Ask Database to find out specifically what your visitors are looking for. It's something I'm considering implementing this year to 'pump up' the response on this blog.
  
  
• 2. Invite Questions from Blog Readers. This can work for your blog or your website. Sometimes solo entrepreneurs tend to answer questions that haven't been asked yet, thinking that if it were us we'd ask the same question. Your visitors, customers and readers may not be thinking the same thing.
  
  
• 3. Specialize Them. Are you a member of Linkedin, Merchant Circle, or any number of social networking sites? When they come to your site or blog, make them 'members' instead of simply a part of the 'other surfers' online.
  
  People like to be a part of something exclusively for them, whether it is between posts that only they have access or a special bonus offer only they get notified about in advance.

Take these few tips and the ones from Problogger to help you get more mileage from your business efforts. Often it's the simple things we overlook that make the most impact to our bottom line. That's it for today and I leave you with this -

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours. ~Harry S. Truman