Gaining an audience online involves more than SEO and proper keyword density. The first step to gaining an audience is finding an audience. Even the most searchable articles won’t generate many page views if no one is searching for your topic. The bottom line here – to get a larger audience you need to reach a larger audience.
While tools like SEO Book give you raw numbers of searches, what they don’t reveal is who is doing the searching. To effectively deliver content you must take into account who your audience is, what your audience does online, and most of all, why an internet user should click on your article. Internet user demographics provide part of that answer.
Internet User Demographics
Please note: Because AC content producers must be US citizens, the focus of this demographical information is on the United States.
Total Internet Users
Approximately 71% of Americans use the internet. This gives you a potential online audience of 215 million people.
What this means: That’s a mighty big pie. How big a slice do you want?
Gender
Not a big gap here. Just slightly over half of all internet users are male. The other half is obviously female.
What this means: Gender should not be afactor in article selection. Your potential audience is about the same.
Age
You probably don’t need internet demographics to tell you this one. A far greater percentage of young people use the internet in comparison to older individuals. Roughly 87% of adults between 18 and 29 use the internet. Only 32% of people over 65 use the internet.
What this means: Articles targeted to a younger demographic have a substantially greater potential audience.
City or Country
More city and suburban dwellers (73%) use the internet than rural dwellers (60%). Not only is the percentage of users higher, but the sheer number of people who are urban and suburban dwellers (255 million people) far outnumbers the 55 million people who live in rural areas.
What this means: With five times the potential audience, articles aimed at urban and suburban individuals have a far greater potential audience.
What this also means: Competition for those urbanites may be greater.
For more information regarding these parameters, including the raw data, click HERE.
Internet Usage Demographics
Perhaps more telling for AC content producers is not who is online, but who is doing what online.
Ever wonder why craft articles do so well? Why product reviews get so many page views? Why AC made that big push for news stories? The answer lies in who does what on the internet.
Breakdown of Daily Internet Activities
Of the 215 million Americans who use the internet, 69% of them use it on an average day according to Pew Internet & American Life Project research. This means that just over 148 million people a day are on the internet in the US alone.
What the average internet user does on a daily basis:
56% — Checking or sending email
120 million people daily
This is the number one internet activity.
41% — Using a search engine to find information
88 million people daily
This is the number two activity. The web is driven by information. CP’s who write informative articles tap into a large segment of internet users.
37% — Getting News
80 million people daily
Ever wonder why news is featured on the AC front page? Over a third of the people online look for it on a daily basis.
29% — Searching for information about Hobbies and Crafts/Interests
62 million people daily
Ever wonder why craft articles do well? Almost a third of internet users look for hobby information on an average day.
19% — Researching product or service reviews
41 million people daily
Almost a fifth of internet users research a product online before making a purchase. This is why those product reviews generate page views.
15% — Looking for Sporting News and Scores
32 million people daily
Notice the pie is getting smaller for these types of articles.
9% — Using a social networking site (Myspace, Facebook, etc…)
19 million people daily
These numbers are from August, 2006. May be higher now.
9% — Playing Games Online
19 million people daily
Less than one out of ten internet users do this on a daily basis. Still a big number.
8% — Using Wikipedia for Information
17 million people daily
There’s your competition. Ever wonder why those Wikipedia entries get such high search engine placement? Popularity plays a big part.
8% — Looking for Travel Information
17 million people daily
Travel articles still get some views.
5% — Searching for How-to and Do-it-yourself information
11 million people daily
One of the smaller sections of the potential audience, but still a sizeable number.
4% — Creating Internet Content
9 million people daily
Hey, that’s you and me!
1% — Selling Something Online
2 million people daily
I expected this number to be higher.
What this means: Consider these numbers to be something akin to a daily page view meter. For example, the numbers show that interest in crafts and hobbies is two times higher than the interest in sports.
In general, articles that target the higher percentage groups stand a better chance of getting more page views.
As you can see, the internet activities demographic aligns almost perfectly with AC’s content categories, and with good reason. These are the areas that have the greatest demand for content.
What this also means: Once again, the greater the potential audience, the more competition you face.
For an even greater breakdown of internet usage, click HERE.
Source: Pew Internet & American Life Project, which you can find HERE.
