Tri-State AD-vantage eBriefs

Commerce Business News
Northwest Georgia and Southeast Tennessee
December 2001

"Surf's Up! But where's everyone going?
By Marsha Boyer

To some, surfing down a thunderous wave off Hawaii would be the ultimate thrill. To others, there is no comparison to surfing the Internet at lightning fast broadband speed.

With the advent of high-speed DSL service and cable modems, Internet junkies are able to fly from site to site almost as fast as mouse buttons click.

Armed with that kind of power, Internet users are logging on more often and staying online much longer because the dreaded spinning hourglass has almost disappeared. If you want to visit a graphics intense web site with animated graphics and a cute audio clip, no problem. It's completely loaded before you can read the first two lines of text or follow the bouncing ball across the page. Now "That" makes surfing "Fun"!

So where is everyone going out there now that the speed barrier has been broken? The top three web site properties listed in the Nielson/NetRatings, November 11, 2001 puts AOL in first place with a whopping 51% of the audience with each person averaging 15 minutes before surfing off into Internet Space. Next in line is Yahoo! with 41%, but their audience stays connected longer at 27 minutes. MSN comes in third at 37% with a 24 minute visitor attention span.

Interestingly, Microsoft comes in fourth with 13% of the surfing audience who only stick around for 5 minutes before clicking away. Others include Lycos Network, with 12%, eBay has a surprising 10% and even Walt Disney Internet Group comes in at 9%, pulling in the large, online youth audience.

So, what does this mean to the average web site owner? Well, unless you are a major-leaguer like Cabelas.com or Amazon.com, it isn't realistic to expect millions of visitors to your web site. That only happens on TV commercials.

What would be realistic is to expect a gradual increase of visitors to your web site each month as your domain name (URL) propagates around the world. This can be tracked in reports provided by your hosting provider or webmaster. As numbers increase, requests for your product or service should also increase. Remember, even the "Big Boys" didn't get there overnight.

As with starting any new business, you must apply the "Three P's" in building a successful internet business; Planning, Promotion and Perseverance. Its' a highly competitive market out there. Successful web sites don't just happen by accident, they're earned.

In our next column, we'll take a look at "Why web sites fail!"