With a well-defined list of business objectives in hand, you are now ready to work out who you want to reach in order to best meet those goals. In other words, the businesses objectives help determine the target audience.
As it is quite likely that many readers will already have a blog or site up and running at this stage, it is important to state upfront that if, as a result of the research you perform here, you find that your blog or site, in its current form, is not suitable, then it may be necessary to refocus what you have or start a new blog. Don't be afraid to change direction. Rather bite the bullet now than persist with a site that you don't believe will be effective.
Doing a bit of research into who might be interested in your product or service (your target market) can often yield surprising results. For example, you might have a business selling garden furniture with a blog on growing garden plants. The obvious audience for a blog such as this would be home owners as they are most likely to have gardens. What about people who live in apartments?
In all likelihood, gardening services and landscape artists might also be interested in a good quality blog on this topic. These businesses might be interested in a slightly different aspect of gardening, although no doubt there are topics that will appeal to both groups.
Is that all?
What about regional differences? Garden plants in Vermont are not likely to have much appeal to gardeners in New Mexico, unless they are determined to fly in the face of natural selection. Who are you going to cater for?
What about age groups? How many teenagers enjoy gardening work? As unreal as a hardworking teen might sound, I am sure there are one or two lurking around. But do they fit your target market? Probably not, as they are unlikely to own homes and gardens, and therefore won't need garden furniture.
Is income bracket a factor? People who live in apartments may not have the resources or inclination to read up on the fascinating world of garden plants. City dwellers may be very high earners, but still not be interested in gardening. So, urban and sub-urban people may be different in this regard. By considering each and every aspect that goes into making up ideal visitors, you can begin to piece together how to present content and information to best meet the stated business objectives.
Note
Any given audience consists of smaller subgroups. Content should be created to target specific subgroups in order to be as relevant as possible.
In particular, knowing who you are aiming at can help determine the structure of your WordPress blog or site as a whole. Major subgroups of your target market could have content categorized and presented in focused, relevant segments (for example, possibly displayed in the main menu links).
Remember that you can target different market segments organically; focus on one or two major audience subgroups and then branch out once you have additional resources or demand.
Knowing who you are catering for is one thing. Knowing how a particular niche industry is already organized is another. It may be that the people you wish to reach tend to use chat groups regularly. Maybe they cluster around one or two large forums, or are widely spread out in smaller communities.
Spend some time learning who the players are. Think about whether they would make a strategic ally or whether they are direct competitors. Find out where the action is. Do people gather at conventions and meet face-to-face, do they hold webinars, or are they disparate and thin on the ground?
Learn what is popular and what isn't. Online communities often have their own flavor or way of doing things. Some, for example, will disallow strong language completely and encourage a tone of respect of moderation. Other communities are barely moderated at all and adopt an "anything goes" attitude.
As your WordPress blog (or the website your blog is integrated with) is going to have to integrate well into the existing networks and communities, it is important to ensure that the content you offer is acceptable within the context of the wider community.