Survey Results

The survey was conducted as part of a wider research project in 2000 into web site promotion - if you would like to find out more about this, please contact us.
Survey results are summarised below, and more information is available via links at the bottom of this page.

Summary
The average person in our sample has been online for 3 years, spends over 8 hours a week using the Internet, a third of which is spent actively searching for information - but only succeeds in finding what they want about 60% of the time. On average, just over 60% of their time online is used for business purposes.

Search engines are the most popular way for people to find new web sites; banner ads are the least favourite. People use a variety of routes to find sites, particularly 'word of mouth' recommendations by friends and colleagues, magazines, links from other web sites, and email news/mass-mailings. This suggests that any promotional plan should not be too dependent on one or two methods.

Connection speed is the most frustrating aspect for most Internet users, followed by badly organised and poor quality web sites. In general, businesses must improve usability of their web sites, navigation and content, before expending much effort on promotion - otherwise it will be wasted.

Though search engines are 'popular', they are a blunt instrument, causing much frustration and loss of time for users, and can be an unpredictable and unreliable means of promotion for web site owners.

Businesses cannot rely on search engines as their primary means of promotion. Companies must consider use of 'pay for express submission', pay for professional optimisation, and also bid for keyword triggered ads to make the most of search engines.

A two tier ranking mechanism in the search engines is becoming increasingly apparent. The top 30 or so pages listed for popular keyword searches are selectively reinforced in their popularity ratings because they are highly 'visible'. The lower tier of thousands of pages, which may be even higher in quality, are 'invisible' and are therefore rated poorly for 'popularity' (number of click-throughs). Breaking through to the 'visible' list is becoming more difficult.

Successful web promotion appears to depend on a number of factors, including:

• accurately targeting customers
• accurately selecting the best mix of online and offline media to reach the right customers
• promotion plan is well integrated with marketing and business plans
• clearly defined objectives, and continuous monitoring of results
• flexibility and willing to experiment; able to change plans quickly

You may download the survey results here - just select one of the following (the zip file is a MS Word 2000 document):

onlinesurvey.pdf (115Kb)
onlinesurvey.zip (668Kb)

You need the free Acrobat PDF Reader (for the first file above) or a utility such as WinZip (for the second file above) to access these files.

If you'd like some straightforward advice on web site promotion, get in touch now. We can help you devise the most effective plan, and put it into action.