Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

So what is the objective? If it's simply to write, then the topic doesn't really matter. You can write about the benefits of having a goldfish in a bowl on your desk. It doesn't matter.

If, on the other hand, you have some other objective in mind, you might want to (a) define your target audience and (b) identify the specific action you'd like the target audience to take after they've landed on your website. Actually write those things on a piece of paper so your mind will "absorb" them better.

And a target audience of "people in the age group of say 20+" is way too broad. There are billions of people in that category. Almost any topic will be meaningless to most in that group. Narrow the target audience based not only on age, but also on geographic location, education, interests, hobbies, work, married/no kids, married w/kids, grandchildren, etc., etc. Then write for that very narrow audience on a topic that is important to them.

Let's say you have some great ideas on what to write already. You write amazing articles, that you're very proud of. Now what? How will prospective clients find your articles? It's not enough to be a good writer, you need to be found - and that's a skill that you can learn, but it'll take time to get some results (and a fair bit of work).

Alternatively, if you're looking to attract some new clients, then consider writing an Ad Words campaign targeting people looking for content for your expertise. You'd write a one-page "landing" page for each of your campaigns (one per content area), and then targeted campaigns for special keywords/locations. It'll cost you a little bit to get started, but you'll be targeting those that are looking for people like you, rather than simply showing your writing and hoping that someone will say, "Hey, I should hire them!"

Let's do a little reverse-engineering here. You say "However the web space is crammed with several websites on the same topics."

Well, there is a real problem here. Because my guess is that 95% of them tackle things like (say) diabetes head on, naming the drugs that people take and so on. Which is fine. Now by the merest coincidence Brian forgot his pills when he popped over from Hamburg last night. Could he remember which one it was? What its name was? Nope.

Looking on the net, there is practically zilch for someone asking questions. All you get are answers - and the poor folk are looking for those answers, only they don't know what they are and so can't find them. Which was Brian's problem: he couldn't find the answer because nobody had optimized for the QUESTIONS.

Optimize for the questions, write a decent article and you have some pretty focused traffic. You can do this for your potential customers too. Focus on the questions they ask, and work outwards from there - and this is the starting point for a highly effective (and inexepensive) Adwords campaign because your keywords won't be targeted by many people. What's more, you'll be pretty safe from copy-cats as they'll all be looking at the competition for their current keywords and yours won't even show.