By Jennifer Kyrnin

Your readers are your audience. They are the people who buy your products, generate your ad revenue, and click on your links. If you don't listen to them, you won't have to worry about listening to them, as you won't have any readers.

What are they saying?
You can't respond to your audience if they can't contact you. Many Web sites have removed all contact information, as if they wanted to pretend that there was no one behind the Web site, it just appears on its own. But if your readers can't contact you, how can you find out what they want to know?

The first step is to make sure that there is contact information easily accessible on your Web site. For example, on the HTML @ About.com site, there is a "contact" link at the top of every page. Yes, I get a lot of junk email, but hitting the delete key is easy, and knowing my audience is worth it.

Keep in mind, in most cases, your readers won't come right out and email you with what they want. You should also use surveys, polls, focus groups, and other tools to learn what your readers want.

Once you know what they want
Give it to them. If you're getting email requesting specific information, make sure that it's on your Web site, readily available. Answer their questions promptly, and use your messages to promote your Web site. If their question is answered on your site, point to that page. If it's not, make a note of the question, and write content for your site.

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