Several weeks ago, I wrote on my old blog site about how to balance your writer’s voice with your audience’s interests[1]. You know you need to capture the attention of your readers so that they will read your writing and understand your point. Now you need to determine what interests them. Everyone has their process for coming up with a topic for their articles or posts. I’ll be sharing three ways you can use to choose a topic that your audience will love.

            The first way is the simplest. Your publication will likely have parameters for you to follow. Those guidelines will narrow your choices for topics a great deal. Even if you are writing as a freelancer or business owner, you should already have a target audience in mind. Parameters give you a general idea of what your audience, including your publication, expects. You can take those expectations and incorporate them into your work through both topic choice and writing style.

            A second way you can determine what will interest your audience is by considering demographical information. Think about what qualities your target audience has. Their location, their age, and any other demographical details can give you clues of what your target audience cares about. The industry your writing for will give you a general idea of what to expect. There is also plenty of research online that you can use for statistics that will give you a gist of what topics your audience cares about. My only warning is to be careful of stereotypes. You want to base your writing on facts, not false perceptions. Make sure that the sources you use are credible and don’t let demographical information be the only basis for your topics.

            A final way you can determine what topics will interest your audience is by asking questions that put you in their position. If you were the audience, what would you want to read? What kind of problems might you have that need to be solved? For example, let’s say you are writing an article for first-time owners of chihuahua puppies. What would you want to know if you were a first-time owner? You would want to know all the basics about a puppy’s care, of course, but you would also need to know breed-specific information. I wish I knew how much a short-haired chihuahua sheds before I got one! By including this information in your article, you will be supplying your audience with important answers to problems they have right now and ones they don’t even know they have yet.

            As the author, you need your writing to appeal to your audience. The best way to do that is to choose topics that offer them useful information and answers to their questions. By following publication guidelines, completing thorough research about your audience, and placing yourself in their position; you can identify what will capture your audience’s attention.

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[1] You can find the first article here: https://kalitedrow.blogspot.com/2020/06/how-to-balance-your-intentions-with.html