Freelance Content Writer, SEO Blogger, Ghostwriter – squareONE

You want to create quality content that will get read. The worst feeling is when you take the time to create content that no one reads.

One of the most challenging things to do as a writer or content creator is to come up with an idea of what to write.

Sometimes, all we hear are crickets in the night…

Ideally, you are using a content calendar, but ensuring every slot is filled with a possible relevant topic you can write on can sometimes be an uphill battle.

You want to create quality content that will get read. The worst feeling is when you take the time to create content that no one reads.

Why you need to tailor content to your reader’s persona

Focus on Somebody rather than Anybody.

If you write generic, non-specific content, you are not bringing any value to your reader because you are trying to appeal to everyone and not solving anything.

If you strategize and build your content keeping in mind a specific someone, you will get more engagement and serve something significant to your reader.

And that is your end goal. To Bring Value.

I want my reader to leave reading my piece, saying it was not a waste of their three minutes. When writing anything, relevance, quality, and clarity should be at the top of your list.

Writing relevant content is selfless because we write for our audience, not ourselves.

Reader personas help to create content calendars

When you have a reader persona in place, your content will reflect segments of your audience.

And when this happens, something phenomenal takes place.

Now, you are writing detailed content for a specific group of people because you took the time to get to know them better.

Your content will automatically become less generic and more relevant with more authority. Now, you are creating content from the perspective of your reader.

And magically, your content calendar won’t seem as daunting as before because you now know what your readers need to read.

Let’s check out how we can learn more about our readers and create the right content.

Things to remember to understand your reader persona

I made this simple by listing three ways to learn about your reader’s preferences and paint points to build a persona.

Because we are business owners, writers, and ordinary everyday people who want to learn how to write applicable, valuable content for our readers.

But we don’t have the time to carry out complicated surveys.

1. What are your reader’s demographics and psychographics?
We all know what demographics are, but have you heard of psychographics?

These are what drive our readers to look for specific topics online. This behavior ultimately frames their goals, dreams, values, attitudes, interests, and lifestyles.

It would help if you tapped into what their life looks like and the challenges they are dealing with.

Get into their head.

Questions could be:

• Which of the following kinds of content are more important to you
• What content do you like to read in your free time?
• What kind of content would you spend your money on?
• How do you select content to read?
• What type of content do you relate to and resonate with the most?

Take the time to talk to readers and clients that read your content. Ask them questions to get to know them better.

If you can’t do this, look at the comments under your blogs and content and study what readers say about your content.

Reach out to them to learn why they read your article or visit your site. Was it useful? What answers are they looking for that your content still needs to answer?

Are you a new writer? Look at your competitor blogs and sites to see what people appreciate or point out.

Then, group readers together who share similar psychographics.

You can use tools like AnswerthePublic and Ubersuggest to find out what readers are asking or searching for. You can look at Google Analytics, Alexa, and your social media pages and check out insights to find demographics.

2. What are your reader’s pain points?
Pain points are your reader’s problems that you are probably trying to address. But how do you figure out what their pain points are?

Look at competitors if you are new and just starting out.

Here are a few quick, free, easy ways to do it:

• Online review platforms like Yelp
• Comment Sections of Blogs, YouTube videos
• Facebook Forums
• LinkedIn Groups
• Reddit and Subreddits
• Quora

Your reader’s pain points can also be specific to the layout and how the content is published. Keep these things in mind when creating a persona.

3. How can you pull all of this information together?
Now that you have all the information and an idea of what kind of readers are checking out your content, you can combine it to create one persona or even a few. Many like to name these personas to make them more personal and relatable.

Whether you do that or not is up to you. But do list preferences and pain points because this will be helpful when creating content every day.

An important thing to remember is that there are people on the other side of the screen reading your words. Make your piece more personal by trying to get to know them better, and you have already taken the first step of building a relationship with your readers.

We are in this for the long run

Creating a reader persona does not happen in a day or two.

I can’t stress this enough, especially if you are a new writer and have just started creating content. However, it would help if you began to drill down on your content to ensure it is relevant for your readers.

You can do this by looking at your competitors and using the tools mentioned above. With time, your audience will grow, and you can tweak the persona as it becomes clearer who your target audience is.

I am curious to know how other writers do it.

How do you choose what kind of content to create every day? What inspires you to write, and what are your processes?

Originally published for New Writers Welcome on Medium on September 25, 2023.