Finding Out What Readers Want?

http://www.google.com/insights/search/# is a great tool for finding out what your audience is really interested in. You can break it down into regional areas, date range and major topic. Just type in the topic you are researching and see what others are looking for on Google. Once you know what people are after, then you can direct your writing right to them.

So why bother? Well, it is important to make sure you are on the same wavelength as your audience. If you type in Fourex and think beer, then some of your audience might be thinking of a completely different product.  The same goes for vampire stories, time travelling or mushrooms. They can all cover a dozen areas and making the assumption that when you say mushroom, the audience knows what you mean is just asking for trouble.

Using Google insights has another benefit. It can help generate ideas, similar to using a thesaurus. Entering one tterm and seeing a list of similar terms, helps the mind wander and think of ideas.