Posted In: Reflections
This week, our class read about writing for your audience. Basically, this means writing content and designing your site to match the preference of the ideal reader or user. I connected this to the creation of my own website at tayloruntamed.com, where I’ve used similar methods to attract readers who will be likely to return and become consistent followers of my material. To start, I will discuss the importance of tailoring content for your ideal reader.
It’s important to write what people want to read. Whether you want to provide factual information or give personal accounts of your own life, there is a good chance there will be a crowd for you out there somewhere. The key is to stay consistent with your content to make sure it attracts your niche of readers and doesn’t turn them away with a sudden change.
The example used in the article was recipe websites. Many times, the owners of these sites are bloggers who want to not only provide their readers with new recipes to try but their own personal stories or relationships with that recipe. For some readers, the ones who want to keep up with the writer’s life story, this combination is ideal. But for those simply looking for a new recipe, it can be a turn off to have to search and scroll through an article for that recipe. These bloggers have found a solution. Because they have two major groups of readers using their content (those interested in their story and those looking for a recipe), there is an option for a reader to skip the written material and go straight to the recipe at the end of the post.
On my website, I have a similar way for my readers to find the content they will enjoy. I, similar to a recipe blogger, write blog posts about my life and tips for their next outdoor adventure. To provide the potential for these two groups of posts and their subsequent readers, I’ve split this content into categories. That way, if my reader is looking for posts about my life and experiences, she can simply click that tab, revealing all my recent posts on the subject. And if one is simply looking for help with an outdoor skill or travel planning, there is a large category of practical tips providing anything one could need.
As far as content, many users style their pages, even the most intricate details, to attract the right readers. On my site, I’ve implemented many different design techniques to do the same. For example, when you first open my site, you see a large home screen welcoming you before a landscape view of the mountains. That way, when one first sees my website, they know that it is focused on the outdoors. Also, I made sure to use a picture with many colors and a beautiful view. This will attract my readers to my content, persuading them that my blog posts will provide them with the same feelings as the image.