Why Do People Go Online?
Are you thinking about starting your own blog or online business? If so then the first question that you need to answer is what sort of category you are interested in writing about or what kind of products you are interested in selling and if there is going to be enough of a demand for you to make a little money at it. The Ruder Finn Intent Index is something that I came across about a week ago that can help you match up why people go online with why they would be interested in what you have to offer.
There are seven broad categories ordered from most popular reasons to least popular:
- To Learn
- To Have Fun
- To Socialize
- To Express Themselves
- To Advocate
- To Do Business
- To Shop
You can dive down into each of the specific categories, but for now let's just focus on the broad strokes. If you are starting an informational blog then it's obviously important that you are providing information that will help your readers educate themselves on the topic you are covering and to help keep them informed of current events in your niche. If you are using a blog to sell for products or services then allowing readers to do research and comparisons is a great way to hit the largest part of the online population and hopefully build enough trust with the reader so they will come back to your site when they are ready to buy.
I would also say that this study shows that entertaining your readers is important to keep them coming back. There is no reason why you can't educate the visitor while entertaining them at the same time. Blogs are also a great way to socialize with the online community as you allow people to leave comments, share stories or experiences of their own, discuss what they have read, and to be part of a community in a topic that interests them.
It's interesting that the shopping comes at the bottom of the list, since selling products is how most of us make money online. My strategy is almost always to focus on bringing as much traffic to my sites as possible, building trust with those visitors, and then matching up their interests with special offers on related products. I personally have made a lot more money with affiliate promotions and selling my own products and services than I have with straight advertising.
If you liked this article, you may also be interested in: