Ghostwriting Services by Robert Britt

One of the most important things to remember when you are writing is that you are writing for your audience. Only you can determine who that audience is, but if you don’t have a target market in mind, you won’t be getting the readers you want.

My Aunt Minnie

So as you put pen to paper, or hover over your keyboard, you need to be thinking about that person. Who? You ask. The very specific person that you want reading what you are about to write. Is it your Aunt Minnie or is it Donald Trump? (Or is Donald Trump secretly your Aunt Minnie?) Seriously, if you don’t have a target audience in mind you are likely to attract no audience. Like the Traveling Wilburys say, if you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. So we want a specific road to get us to that destination of our desired target audience.

The average reading level of the internet audience is eighth grade. So unless your target audience is rocket scientists you better stick to a fairly simple vocabulary and construct your sentences appropriately. This article isn’t for the average reader; it’s for the beginning/intermediate writer, so slightly more advanced vocabulary is permissible.
A reader also is not going to want to jump into a huge block of text, so the paragraphs should be no more than two or three sentences. This makes your page easier to look at and less intimidating. Breaking it up with a couple of related graphics is also highly desirable.
People love pictures and a picture is worth a thousand words, so a couple pictures are going to really enhance the message you are trying to deliver. On the flip side you can’t expect your pictures to carry weak writing, so make sure the content you deliver is useful and interesting as well.

Is this your target audience?

So what does your audience want to see and read? This is really important. If you just sit down and start randomly throwing your thoughts down on paper your story is likely to meander around and never come to any conclusion. People want to finish up reading something either amused or educated in some fashion. (This isn’t to say you need to be a professor or a comedian, just try to stay away from boring.)
To wrap things up, let’s look at the main points. First, always think about the audience you are trying to reach. Second, don’t push away your audience with a huge wall of text – break it up into smaller paragraphs and add some related graphics. And third, think your article through so it doesn’t wander around and end up being a waste of the reader’s time. If you are not writing for your audience you’ll end up not having one.