Determine Target Audience
This is the first step in our Starting an Online Business series. In this article we will look at researching your targeted audience before selecting your business domain name.
If you have done any research on how to market your business you will see a repeated theme, determine your target audience. This holds true when you are developing your website also. Building a business website with the target audience in mind will do much better in the search engines which equates to improved sales. Other related websites will find you also and add a link to your business’ website. This improves your position in the search engine results through incoming links.
As the Internet evolves, more and more people are turning to the Internet for information on their selected topic, for product research and to find businesses that carry a particular product or item they are looking for.
Determine Your Target Audience
When you build a website for your business it has to be built so it draws visitors looking specifically for the product or service you provide if the goal is to draw online sales or have someone find out more about your company if they were referred to you. This requires narrowing down what type of information, features and products your targeted audience would be looking for. To be found on the Internet by visitors that have the potential of being actual customers the website needs to contain quality information, keywords and phrases the targeted audience would search for and project a professional appearance.
We have a series of articles on website planning at Website Checklist which include:
How does all this relate to choosing your business domain name?
Target Keywords and Phrases
Search engines, when they find your website, file away in their databases the content and links contained in your website’s pages. They use this information to determine which results to show when someone does a search. The websites the search engine feels best suits the searched word or phrase will be shown in the order of relevance it feels your website is if your website is in their database.
So what does this have to do with selecting your domain name?
There are multiple things that the search engines use to determine the relevance of your website to the term or phrase a person enters into the search box. One of these is the relevance of your web domain name.
If your business domain name contains the main targeted phrase for your selected target audience then this helps move you up in the results. Remember, this is only part of the equation.
To learn how to select your keywords and phrases for your target audience, take the time to join the free SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Training Class available via email. Even if you are not technically inclined and will be having someone else build your website for you this is a valuable class to take and will help you build a successful web presence for your online business.
Do Your Target Audience Homework
As a business owner you are probably raring to get going on the website for your business’ online presence. Researching your target audience before purchasing your domain name and building your website is just part of the process. Take the time now, even if this delays production of getting your business online by a month or two, to do the research first.
If you take the time at the beginning of your website project to research your target audience your website will be found much easier by the search engines and truly interested visitors which will result in more online sales and/or leads.
Ultimately, this will save you time and money. Rushing into putting up a website can lead to a disappointing return on your investment if it isn’t thought out well in the beginning. A website is a dynamic means of advertising. It will need tweaking as you go along and additional fresh content to keep target audience visitors coming back and referring to your website. Why not start out on the right foot by doing your target audience homework at the beginning of the process instead of fixing your website later?
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8 Responses to Determine Target Audience
Determine Target Audience Was Mentioned Here:
- how do you optimize your site for US traffic?
- Do you research before launching a website?
- Need advise : which promotion method is really effective ?
July 5th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
The target audience is the most significant thing. No matter what your business is. I am really into video marketing. At first I did nothing but post my videos to multiple video uploading sites. The importance of targeting became apparent when I began posting my videos free to Adwido they ran a targeted keyword campaign to help me locate my target customer. The increase in traffic was like magic.
June 26th, 2011 at 11:57 pm
It is ridiculously important to target the right audience when doing marketing for any business venture. The best tools these days to do this are facebook, seach engine optimization and social media marketing on applications such as twitter. I loved this comprehensive article. It is very useful to starters of new businesses who are looking to increase their clientele.
February 8th, 2012 at 8:28 am
This is such an important step that so many people completely ignore. They either start with a ‘niche’ or with a product. When, instead, it is better to start out by researching your people.
February 13th, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Targeting your audience is very important in every business because your audience will be the one who will help you in achieving your goals or dreams with your business. Thus, I am sure many businesses out there have difficulty finding the best target audience because they are not using the right strategy.
April 9th, 2012 at 2:52 am
Many people forget about targeting audience. This should be in the first page of all business tutorial books.