Targeting a Specific Audience to Reach Your SEO Goals

There's a common misconception among website owners regarding the amount of traffic they receive. Many believe the more traffic their site receives the better; however, this isn't necessarily true. Yes, you want to have as much traffic as possible as each visit is potential profit, but if the visits your site receives aren't relevant to your business, the visits are essentially pointless. But, if you target a local audience, you'll increase your profit potential and reach your SEO goals even if you don't receive thousands of page views. By targeting a specific audience with your optimization efforts, the views to your site will be quality views that will result in more potential sales. Along with the added benefits of a specific audience, you'll reach your SEO goals easier as you'll have less competition.

Benefits of Targeting a Specific Audience
When narrowing your focus on a particular audience, you'll find it's easier to create and implement an effective marketing plan. Instead of trying to reach and please everyone, you'll have clearly defined goals in mind. As a result, you'll know exactly how to reach them, reducing the amount of time and effort you spend trying to reach your intended audience.

As you'll be reaching an audience who actually has an interest in your business, you'll have more credibility, which will also encourage more shares among your audience. You'll be viewed as an expert in your area; thus, encouraging more sales among those already following your business. Not to mention, your traffic and sales will increase as your credibility is spread among word of mouth, which is more difficult to accomplish when you have a general focus.

With a general focus your competition is stiff, but if you're targeting a specific audience, you'll have less competition. By narrowing your audience focus, you're also narrowing your competition-- thus, further increasing the accomplishment of your SEO goals.

Reaching Your Targeted Audience

To reach your SEO goals with a targeted audience, you'll need to define who they are and their interests. By determining their age, sex, location and needs, you're able to develop a marketing strategy directly targeting them. By understanding who you're trying to reach, you're able to develop a website that interests them. Not to mention, you will be able to choose the keywords they are likely to use when trying to find a business that suits their needs. This results in more specific keywords with a lower competition than you'll find with generalized keywords.

After you have an engaging website that encourages a relevant audience, you will easily develop an effective content marketing strategy. By understating what your audience is interested in, you'll know what type of material you need to produce and how to distribute it. For example, younger audiences are really into YouTube videos and social media sites; therefore, if you're trying to reach an elderly audience, you want to reconsider the use of primarily using social media sites and limiting your efforts with YouTube videos.

For further information to help you determine how you can begin targeting specific audiences, check out market research studies to understand how the demographic your targeting interacts and what interests them. Conduct surveys to gain the information you need to tighten the focus of your SEO efforts.

When you're targeting a specific audience, your traffic may decrease but that's perfectly alright if the traffic your site now receives is relevant; whereas, it was generalized traffic before. As you tighten your focus, you'll certainly reach your SEO goals easier and more effectively when compared to a general targeted audience.

What benefits have you discovered with a targeted audience? How did you determine who to target and how do you reach them?