(ALMOST) 2 BILLION AND STILL GOING UP!

Holy Internet Batman!

In January 2009 I wrote an article titled “1.5 Billion Internet Users…and Growing“, exploring the incredible development of the use of the web in recent years. I just happened to be (web) surfing this morning when I decided to visit the authority on Internet statistics, Internet World Stats…

…almost 2 BILLION! We’ll perhaps a slight exaggeration. The numbers at the end of 2009, a mere 11 months after I wrote my last were 1,802,330,457. That’s an increase of 400,000,000 users, or 26% of the world’s population.

In North America, the US is way out front in terms of number of users (220 million) but in percentages, it’s behind Greenland (90% but only 57,600 population). Canada has a 75% penetration which translates to 28 million users.

Asia still lags behind with 20% of the population having Internet access, but that’s an increase of 250 million people, almost as much as the entire North American continent. That number is primarily comprised of Chinese web users (384 million or 28% of the population), followed by Japan with 75% (96 million) of the population and India a close third with only 7% but 81 million users.

In Europe, the top three countries, number-of-Internet-users wise are Germany (54 million), the UK (47 million) and Russia (43 million). However, on the percentage scale, the leader is Iceland (93%), Norway (91%), and Sweden (89%).

Netcraft’s 2010 survey of websites reports that 207 million websites responded to their tests. Remember that these include sites such as WordPress which have “sub sites” below them, but this is still an increase of 20 million since my January post (187).

I could go on and on. Take a moment to check out the numbers for yourself. In conclusion, what this all means is that over a quarter of the planet is wired to the web. From an e-marketing and e-business standpoint, that’s an incredible ocean in which to go fishing and all indications are that the numbers are going to continue to go up. The ratio of users to websites is going up, which I guess is good for those of us who have sites, there are more users to go around.

Can’t wait to see how this all looks in another 12 to 18 months. Isn’t the World Wide Web an amazing place?

Reference sources
Internet World Stats at www.internetworldstats.com
Netcraft at www.netcraft.com

A CHEAP HOME MAKEOVER, SPRING CLEANING, CALL IT WHAT YOU WILL, YOUR WEBSITE MIGHT NEED IT

Especially in the current economic climate not everyone can afford to dramatically update their website every year or two. This is true especially for those of us who are self-employed or small business owners. Several of my most recent clients have been very honest. "We just don’t have the money to do what we’d like," said one," what can you do to help?"

Now granted, I’m in the web design business, so there may be more that I can do than our clients, and we do. In the aforementioned case, I did some cleaning up of the page content, streamlined tags and titles, did some SEO, and using some spit, polish and elbow grease gave the site a refresh without a rebuild.

In some cases, I don’t even actually get hired. If I can give a couple of ideas away for free and send the client on their merry way, so much the better.

Anyway, that awfully long-winded introduction leads me to today’s topic: things you can do yourself or have done relatively inexpensively to get or keep your site in good shape…or at least up-to-date.

1. Update the main page content. If you don’t have a lot of time to keep your page updated, at least change the front / main page article. Depending on what business you’re in, it should be current, addressing current concerns or industry developments.




2. Check every page. Do all the internal links work. Does the "about me" link on the menu take you to a working "about me" page? Check the spelling on every page. Better yet, have someone help you. Sometimes we suffer from the "wood through the trees" problem and don’t see simple typos or grammatical errors.




3. Verify and test your contact information. Has your email address or phone number changed? It has? Did you change it on your site? If you have forms on your site that people can fill out and send to you (or somewhere else), test them.




4. Check your links. Do you link to other sites from yours? Have you checked those links recently? Websites come and go. They also change. I’ve seen a previous domain name that someone no longer used assigned to an adult-themed site. That’s great for the new site, but imagine if someone was linking to it…and not expecting that.




5. Check your feeds. Do you have a news feed on your site? Do you have IDX? Anything that brings external data to your site is subject to the same problems as links. Sites come and go. Check all the incoming feeds.




6. Is your site in the main search engines? You can read my ongoing series SEO 101 for more information (here’s a link), but your site should probably be showing up in the "big three" search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN (Bing). How can you tell? Visit each of the sites and type in site:www.jdeltd.com (substituting your domain name for mine). Read the results. Does that look like yours? If not, update your titles and tags.




7. Get some fresh photos. Stock photography is inexpensive (sometimes free) and can make a world of difference. The worst-looking site can be given an "extreme makeover" with some nice photos. Conversely, bad photos can ruin a good site.
   




8. Get some honest feedback. Ask some friends or colleagues for feedback. It may not all be good, but if it’s honest, you can see which of it you can afford to fix now and what needs to be done later. Websites are all about perception.




9. Get that date current! You know the date at the bottom of each page (often with the copyright notice)? Nothing says "not worth visiting" than a site with a date of pre-2009. The information may be more recent, but people do notice that date. Anything pre-2009, in my opinion, makes the site look old.




10. Resolve to repeat 1 through 9 at lease once a month…

Some of this is perhaps a little obvious, but I think it’s rather essential. There’s nothing here that has to cost a lot in terms of time or money, and it’s certainly a worthwhile investment.

When you’ve done your updates, write a quick press release and send it to one of the many free press release companies. Not comfortable writing? Have someone do it for you. A press release doesn’t have to be an editorial, just a paragraph telling people "DAVE’S HOME PAGE MAKEOVER COMPLETE", along with some links to your site. Send some emails out announcing the update, perhaps even some postcards.

Your website is your online store front, accessible by millions. It’s open 24x7x365. It may not be the coolest, trendiest store front in the world, but it’s well-maintained, clean, friendly…and yours.

1.5 Billion Internet Users…and Growing

According to the World Internet Usage Stats website, the current percentage of the world population that uses the Internet is almost 22%. The approximate world population is in the 6.5 billion range and there are almost 1.5 billion Internet users out there. I can’t think of too many changes in the history of mankind that have impacted that many people so quickly, for better or worse.

Less than a decade ago, the numbers were vastly different, with only 360 million Internet users. That means a four-fold increase in less than 10 years!

When looking at “penetration”, the total percentage of a population with Internet access, as one would expect, North America leads the pack with about 75.5% of its population “connected”. The US is followed by Oceania (South Pacific, Australia and New Zealand) with almost 60% and Europe with 48%. Asia has only a 15% penetration, below Latin America and the Middle East.

Look at the numbers, and the picture changes dramatically. Asia, lead by China, has over 578 million Internet users. North America comes third on the list with 248 million, behind Europe (384 million). If China continues to grow in business and technology as it has over the past few years, that number will double or even triple in the next few years.

What most impresses me is the sheer number of people now connected and the potential for people who could never had met before now getting together, collaborating, sharing ideas, cultures, information and friendship.

It’s mind-blowing!

Counting the number of websites is a little more difficult. This is in part because the definition of website is somewhat vague. Does a Facebook “site” count as a separate one from Facebook itself? According to Netcraft’s 2008 December survey, they saw almost 187 million web sites.

As I said, the definition of a “web site” is a little vague. According to Royal Pingdom, the number is 162 million. Pandia estimates the number of pages (not sites) at between 15 and 30 billion). ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) say in their 2008 report that there are 163 million domain names and 1.4 billion users.

Take the ratio of sites to users and you have roughly 8.5 users to every site. That’s not a big ratio.Web sites come and go, as do users, but in the past 10 years, the ratio has been dropping. In 2000 it was 9:1.

What does this all mean to us, down here? Search engine optimization, good site content, frequent updates, site promotion using everything from social media to advertising and a solid marketing plan is vital if your online presence is going to be felt.

That said, the possibilities are endless too. Never has a business playing field been so level. Sure, there are the big companies that can spend a ton in advertising to attract visitors, but there is plenty of room for the smaller player too. Collaboration and innovation is possible in a local, national and worldwide level. Success is possible with little investment, a good idea and the means to get the message out.

I those 1.5 billion users visit (we’ll say conservatively) 10 sites a day, that’s 15 billion visitors to websites around the world.

Just 1,000th of 1% of those visits means is 15,000…a day. Heck, I’ll take a tenth of that…for now!

The Internet is an ocean. Let’s go fishing.

Dave

Information courtesy of Pingom (www.pingdom.com), Netcraft (www.netcraft.com), Internet World Stats (www.internetworldstats.com), Pandia (www.Pandia.com, Yahoo (www.Yahoo.com), ICANN (www.icann.org).