by Kimberly Blaker

Professional Freelance Writer & Freelance Ghost Blog Writer

Engage and Compel blog

Jakob Nielsen, a world-renowned authority on web-based behavior, found online readers have time to read only 20%, to 28% tops, of a web page. That means 72% to 80% of the average web page goes unread or is merely skimmed, at best.

Of course, this doesn't mean no one will read your content in its entirety. Assuming it's both relevant to your reader and engaging, a percentage of your audience will read much more or even all of it. The more relevant to your audience and the more engaging the writing, the greater the percentage of readers who'll make it to the finish line.

Neilsen's data is very helpful in realizing just how important it is to know your readers. At the same time, the data provides a crucial clue about your audience if they're web-based readers – that is, they have limited time, or patience, to spend reading.

All audiences are not created equal

Remember in my last post I started to cover the topic of getting to know your readers? I used an example of an outdoors gear company with a blog on outdoor recreation. The blogger was writing an article on hiking the Appalachian Trail.

I'm going to continue the topic of getting to know your readers here. But now let's consider a very different audience.

Let's say you're an accountant wanting to write content for your B2B website. Your audience is business owners. You want to provide informative content that'll draw in leads while also offering something of value to your current clients. So you've decided to inform business owners on how to prepare for tax season.

The first thing you do is consider your audience demographics. You realize this is very broad. Adults of all ages, ethnicities, and income levels own businesses and need to prepare annual business tax returns. So you're writing for a very broad audience in many respects. But there's at least one shared demographic. They're business owners. Something important you know about business owners is they tend to be very busy with little time to waste.

Add to this, your medium is the web. This is another factor that tells you brevity is key.

Finally, the topic itself gives you some clues about your audience. True, all businesses must file an annual tax return. But for most, it isn't so much an 'interest' to them. Rather, it's a necessity for which they just want to cut to the chase.

All these factors help you to know your audience's needs, which is thorough but fast facts.

An example in brevity

So how do you handle this topic? I'll show you in the following example:

As busy business owners, you don't have time to waste. Nor do you have room for error when it comes to your tax return. So prepare for tax time by gathering the following information:

your employer identification number (EIN)

a copy of last year's tax return

your annual gross receipts

your annual cost of goods sold

a categorized list of your annual expenses

Notice I used no frills here. I used the adjective “busy” to connect with my audience. I also made a couple of brief statements that would resonate with my readers regarding not having time to waste or room for error in their tax returns. But I didn't use an abundance of colorful adjectives and adverbs. This audience, unlike the audience for the Appalachian Trail article, would have been bored with and annoyed by such unnecessary details that consume their time to read. Instead, I was direct and to the point.

What it looks like when you don't know your readers

If I had attempted to use all the descriptive adjectives and adverbs here as I did for the Appalachian Trail hiking article, it might have gone something like this:

Prepare yourself for the time-consuming, burdensome tax season by gathering all the necessary documents. This lengthy list includes several items. First, dig through mounds of paperwork and find your employer identification number (EIN). Also, you'll need a copy of your previous year's incredible, eye-opening tax return. Hopefully, you've been keeping good records because the IRS now wants to know just how fruitful your last year has been.

And so on....

Did you make it past the first sentence? All those adjectives and wordiness are unnecessary and a turn-off for an audience of business owners reading on the web, especially on this particular topic.

If you read my previous post, you can now see the importance of knowing your audience. There's a stark contrast in how to write effectively for each of these two very different audiences.

Summing your readers up

So let's review what we've learned. There are several factors to consider that help you know your readers:

1. demographics, such as age, gender, region, and numerous other details for which there are statistical data

2. other group characteristics such as common personality traits or interests

3. the medium, whether it's a magazine, newspaper, website, email letter, or other

4. the topic, anything from fun things to do and see on a tropical island to the risks and symptoms of cancer

Before you begin writing, evaluate each of these factors – and know your readers inside and out. Knowing your audience is the number one key to writing engagingly and compellingly. And it's the component you must take into account with every other element you consider incorporating into your writing.

Kimberly Blaker is a professional freelance writer. She's written for hundreds of publications as well as businesses. If you need business writing, articles, content, editing, or blog posts, she offers real value to her clients. She's also an expert SEO content writer. Kimberly will help you save time, achieve more, and increase your bottom line!