Ask Semalt Expert: The Importance Of Audience Targeting

When you're looking to find more customers for your business, you might think you should just look far and wide, aiming to appeal to everyone who might come across your website or social media profile. However, this method is not the best use of your time and can result in a lot of wasted hours and frustration. You'd have a much better experience through audience targeting.

Audience targeting involves identifying your ideal market and appealing specifically to those people. While this method takes more work on the front end, you're much more likely to see results and make the most of your digital marketing strategy. Here are some major reasons why audience targeting is important and exactly how you can pull it off.

Many business owners believe they should be focusing solely on targeting keywords and increasing SEO to boost the reach of their company. However, audience targeting can be just as effective, if not more so. It's actually best to combine these two schools of thought by appealing to the keywords that your target audience would be searching for.

Once you can attract a loyal following to your platform, you'll have a group of customers for life. By focusing on keywords, however, you might be inadvertently attracting the "one and done" type of customer who purchases one time and never again. By targeting the right audience and building a relationship with them, you're more likely to see repeat customers.

By targeting the right audience, you've got a much higher chance of those clicks turning into conversions. Let's say that you don't target a specific audience, and a random person on your website has a 25% chance of being interested in what you're selling. If you get 500 visitors, that's 125 visitors who would be intrigued by your product.

On the other hand, let's say you're targeting an audience, and a person on your site has a 50% chance of being interested in your company. You might get fewer visitors, but even if you only get 300 visitors, that's 150 visitors who are interested. Even though the total number of visitors goes down, your number of visitors who are interested increases, making this the more favorable scenario for your company.

Engagement matters. Google regards audience engagement quite highly when considering where to put your website in the search results for a certain query. Not only are they looking out for comments on your blog posts or links to your website, but interactions in the comments of your social media channels matter here as well.

With the right audience, you're so much more likely to get high quality engagement. You're sharing information and insight about the things your audience actually cares about, so they're going to want to voice their opinion. Just be sure you're engaging with them, too!

Retargeting is an incredible valuable tool when you're looking to increase conversions, and audience targeting makes this practice much easier. If a random user happens upon your website and doesn't purchase, your retargeting efforts may not go very far. They may or may not be in your target audience, and if they're not, they might not have even given your products a second thought.

When you're targeting the ideal audience, though, retargeting becomes much more effective. They're already interested in your company and your products, but maybe they were unsure or, for whatever reason, couldn't make the leap to purchase when they were first browsing. That all-important retargeting campaign can be just the push they need to dive back in.

Now that you know why you should be audience targeting, how exactly do you do it? It starts with finding your niche. Think about the types of people who would be interested in your company. If you're selling lawn mowers, for instance, you're probably going to be targeting mostly men. This example is incredibly simple and broad, but it helps to automatically narrow your focus.

From there, consider what your audience is like and, most importantly, what they value. Think about demographic factors like age, gender, income level, and location, if necessary. Then, consider their lifestyle. Are they busy professionals? Stay-at-home parents? Retirees? At the end of it all, the biggest question is: What do these people value? Showing that you can appeal to the values and fix the pain points of your audience will go far to building interest and loyalty. 

Now you can consider the stages of the buying process: awareness, consideration, and decision. When you're crafting your marketing strategy, think about where your ideal buyer might be. Then you're finally ready to start appealing to the perfect group of people. Think about what kind of content your audience likes to consume, where they get their information, what SEO keywords they might search, and similar questions. 

Improving SEO isn't all about targeting the right keywords or optimizing your website. Your efforts will go much further if they're being presented to the proper audience. You'll find a greater conversion rate, more effective engagement, and a higher chance of retargeting success. By researching your audience and identifying their values, you can get more out of your overall SEO strategy and digital marketing efforts.

Semalt is a full-stack digital agency serving businesses worldwide. They have been in operation since 2013 and have helped countless clients improve their SEO and become authorities within their respective industries. Their talented team of experts are always available to help you fine-tune your SEO efforts. 

Semalt specializes in SEO (with popular programs like AutoSEO and FullSEO), web development, website analytics, and promotional videos for businesses. With Semalt, you'll have an army of web developers, SEO experts, designers, and marketers by your side. Contact Semalt today to learn more and to request a free SEO consultation.