Shaun Low

If you’re a blogger, who do you write for? Is it for you or your audience? Or a little bit of both?

In a recent post I mentioned one of the blogging analytics tools I use is Quantcast. I like it because it gives me a really good insight into the type of readers I attract, both regular and casual. It has a breakdown of demographics, gender, ethnicity and more.

To give you an example, here are some figures about this blog:

The above chart shows that I have more visitors from the US than anywhere else - which isn’t too surprising considering my location. Combine that with Alexa figures, and I see that my global audience is led by Canada, the UK, India, Australia and Sweden. Quite the mix.

With the information above, I can see how that traffic breaks down. Now I can see that my main audience is made up of middle-aged males of mixed ethnicity, college educated and in both the lower and higher income bracket. So, a little bit of me in there with my readers.

This final chart shows that the majority of visitors to my blog are new, with 16% being regulars. Which, when you break down the traffic over either a weekly or monthly period, pretty much ties in to the subscriber numbers at the top of the blog.

So what does this information offer other than some pretty pictures and figures and why should you care? Simple.

• If you’re writing a niche blog you can see if you’re reaching the right audience.

• If you’re in business and have a corporate blog, you can see where your customer base is coming from (or where it could be coming from).

• If you’re running a PR or marketing campaign for a client, you can gain valuable information about what type of person is attracted to that brand’s blog. This will help you to either strengthen or adapt that campaign.

Far from being just a simple look at who’s reading your blog, you’re suddenly seeing how the world in general is looking at you.

Isn’t that information worth having?

About the author:
Danny Brown is the owner of Press Release PR, a boutique agency specializing in search engine optimized press releases and social media PR. He offers consultancy advice on social media and PR to both individuals and corporations

He has guest authored at leading web and search marketing site Web Analytics World and is a blog partner of the WebProNews and iEntry business networks. He is also a regular contributor to the Dad-o-Matic project.

About The Author

Danny Brown is the owner of Press Release PR, a boutique agency specializing in search engine optimized press releases and social media PR. He offers consultancy advice on social media and PR to both individuals and corporations He has guest authored at leading web and search marketing site Web Analytics World and is a blog partner of the WebProNews and iEntry business networks. He is also a regular contributor to the Dad-o-Matic project.

Posted in: The Net |

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 19th, 2009 at 8:39 am and is filed under The Net. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.