How much do people use the Internet? Well, that depends on who they are. It is a subject of much interest to web designers and people who invest in websites. Obviously you want people to read your content and purchase your goods and services. Otherwise you would not go to all the trouble to build a carefully crafted, W3C compliant, fully functioning web site. So it seems a good idea to find out if the people in your target audience are likely to be surfing the web and searching for your product or service. If you are planning good search engine optimization, you will want to know who is doing the searching in the SEO equation. The who uses the web question can be divided into groups, and then the how they use the web falls into place along with it.

One way you can look at who uses the Internet is by nationality. One of the major search engine providers has a pretty cool thing, a graph that displays the line for countries you choose, over time, and in comparison to other countries you have chosen. It is most interesting to see, and a considerable surprise to me. I started with the USA, and compared other countries to that. You think the USA would top the list? It is not even close, really. Many countries exceed the United States by percentage of population using the web. If I had though about it a little harder, I might could have made a better guess. Cold snowy places, surrounded by icy seas, and with long dark winters, seem to be really well wired. That makes sense, I suppose. Warmer and more tropical places, with tropical fruits hanging from the trees, a reputation for tall rum drinks, and sun-bronzed bodies on the beaches, fall well back in the statistics. I can understand that. You could seek that graphing thing out yourself, or ask your web designer to be sure to take it into consideration when planning your next website project.

Another comparison is by age, with pretty predictable results, for me, though there was a surprise or two there as well. The young, as we have spoken of before, often use the Internet for fun and for social purposes. The middle ages go more for work-related, health-related, or product-related information and services than do either younger or older people. The older people by far use email the most. That surprised me, again until I thought about it a bit. Older people may be retired, and have time to communicate, or perhaps being the well-respected elder head of a family puts one in a position to need to communicate. I’m really not sure about that one The young, not surprisingly, are big on sports scores, dating sites, music and social scenes, and are leading the way in wireless and mobile devices.

There are more statistics, as you would expect, dividing the web-pie up much more finely. But the last thing to mention is the future. That of course we don’t know, but can make an educated guess toward. That is where your highly-qualified coder of W3C compliant web pages comes in. They can use their skills to create a web-site that meets the standards and requirements of the W3C, that is SEO friendly and functional, and that is targeted toward your intended audience.