Before writing any content it is important to have an understanding of your audience. We create personas to describe and understand our target audience/s. This provides detailed insights to help develop content that meets their needs. It also helps us better understand if we are achieving the intended goals of our website.

What is a persona?

A persona is a fictitious representation. We use this information with the intention to gain a clearer picture of our audience. This persona gives us insights on how we can best communicate with our audience.

A persona will include:

  • characteristics
  • motivations
  • objectives of the identity.

This will also include how we can best meet the audience’s needs.

How do we create a persona? How much detail do we need?

We use real data to define a persona. This includes information such as website analytics, user research and organisational strategic information.

Your persona should be specific. Clearly identify who they are, why they are your audience and what they are looking for. The more data rich the persona is, the better understanding you have of your audience.

Develop your persona by:

  • reading information from your organisation or department that shares information about your target audiences
  • searching analytics. Information such as devices used, user location, pageviews and engagement time
  • conduct some testing or research about what language best resonates the with your audience.

What to include in your persona:

  • identify who they are. Give your persona a name and age
  • demographics and psychographics
  • what are the objectives and motivations of this person?
  • how can we help this person achieve their goals?

Example persona

  • Sally – 18
  • female
  • lives in Bundoora
  • last year of secondary school
  • wants to become a nurse
  • looking to study nursing at La Trobe University Bundoora
  • Sally uses her tablet to access the La Trobe website
  • Sally is unsure of how to apply and wants to speak with someone directly about the process.

See more examples of a persona.

How can we use this information?

The persona should be used to guide you when making decisions about web content and your website. Put the Sally, or the persona, at the front of your mind. What information does Sally need to know? What questions may Sally have, but not yet asked?

Have questions about your web editing?

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