Editor’s note: You’ll certainly have heard the following advice, commonly given to bloggers — “write for your ideal reader.” But the truth is, your most valuable readers won’t have identical needs. And if you ignore one important group, your blog growth could stall. Pamela Wilson’s new book is not just a must-read for content marketers; it’s invaluable for bloggers too. In this extract, taken from “Chapter 4: Matching Your Content to Your Customer’s Journey”, she explains how to pitch your content at different experience levels to attract a healthy mix of readers and avoid depriving your blog of the “oxygen” it needs to grow — new fans.

Prospects and customers go through a process of getting to know your business until they feel comfortable opening their wallets and doing business with you.

It’s called a “customer journey.” Although many have tried to map it out and identify key steps along the way, the reality is that the journey taken will look a little different for each person.

Customer journeys are as different as the people who take them.

Content marketing is designed to facilitate this journey — no matter what it looks like — by offering up the right information every step of the way.

I want to share a way of thinking about the customer journey that the Copyblogger editorial team has developed as we work together to produce the Copyblogger blog. We took a step back and looked at how we could best serve our entire audience: the ones who were just finding Copyblogger and the ones who’d been reading for years.

We developed a technique for classifying the content we create, and it has been enormously helpful in guiding our topic choices and developing an editorial calendar that meets the needs of the people who come to our site.

This classification system will ensure that you deliver the content your prospects need to understand your topic, develop trust in your business, and feel comfortable entering into a business relationship.

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You know what? You work damn hard to get people to your blog.

Pushing yourself to unearth the best ideas, pouring your soul into your writing, and promoting your posts like your next breath depends on it.

So it’s a real kick in the teeth when visitors arrive — then bounce right away again.

In fact, it stings like hell. Because let’s face it, getting rejected always feels worse than just being ignored.

But that’s what a bounce means to a blogger — rejection. It means someone showed up, checked you out, and didn’t like what they found.

Whether you know how many readers are bouncing or not, the signs are obvious. Low traffic, poor engagement, sluggish list growth. These are all the symptoms of a bouncy blog.

Naturally, no blog will be a perfect match for everyone who might wander up to the front porch. But if most people who land on your blog can’t wait to leave again, you have a serious problem, friend.

And while you can’t make your blog bounce-proof, you can at least make it bounce resistant.

But only if you know why people bounce.

So here they are, the reasons people bounce from your blog and never return.
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You’re not stupid.

You know what writing is truly about.

It’s a never-ending battle for your readers’ attention.

Every sentence is a link in a taut chain that connects your headline to your conclusion.

And you are just one weak sentence away from losing your reader forever.

So you take your craft quite seriously.

You ignore all but your best ideas.

You work on each piece of writing for exactly as long as necessary to get it right.

And you edit until your words are crisp and clear.

But what if that isn’t enough?

What if weaknesses remain that are almost impossible to spot?
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Seriously, what is it with writers?

You’d think they actually enjoy pain and misery.

After all, writing is hard enough without inventing new ways to make yourself suffer. But suffer they do.

Perhaps it’s the image of the writer as a tormented artist, or a form of occupational masochism, but something seems to make writers seek out pain.

Maybe without it, they don’t feel like “real” writers.

But what about you? Are you a misery magnet? Is pain your faithful muse?

Here are seven ways that writers torture themselves. See how many you recognize (and discover how to avoid them.)
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