Why Do People Go Online? 7 Major Reasons Discovered!

Dear Friend,
People get online for various reasons? Why do you get online? For business,
fun or to look for information. Generally the reasons people get online can be classified
under 7 broad categories.

· Learn
· Have Fun
· Socialize
· Express Themselves
· Advocate
· Do business
· Shop
From the latest survey released by Rfintentindex, the other they are listed above is the order they are found why people go online. The results cut across demographics and gives details of percentage per category.

Let’s take them one after the other and see if we can take advantage of this huge information and create a product for these niches for profit making.

1. Learn
Interestingly people get on line to learn (get information)

Under this we have
· Self Education 96%
· Research 89%
· Keep Informed 79%

This sector is huge potential as it shows the hunger in the hearts of people to get knowledge. This we can take advantage of by promoting educational institutions and providing content to assist researchers in their quest for knowledge.

Self education is a great potential as more and more people are getting associated with the internet distance learning. Here is a need that is still growing by the day.
Men are more reported by the survey to go online to get information on news than women. The youth are more on getting education in this sector.

2. Have Fun
Loads of people get online just to have fun! This is a total shocker for me.

Under this category we have:
· Pass Time 100%
· Be Entertained 82%
· Escape Reality 66%

For Pass Time which rank highest in all, it shows everybody goes online sometimes when they have nothing to engage them, so it your joy to see if you can attract this set of people to your site and get them to read your content and probably buy something from you. Men go online to be entertained more than women, while both youth and seniors are going online to have fun! This reveals a huge market potential.

3. Socialize
Surely most people these days want to connect with their friends, family members, business associates or make friends online.

Here are the subcategories;
· Connect 92%
· Share 86%
· Discuss 76%
· Be part of a community 72%

The social places like Facebook, Squidoo, Twitters, etc has helped in connecting people so much that everyday loads of people go online for this. Forum marketing is also picking up 72% and 76%.
Women do this more than men as they are natural in expressing themselves .Youth also are for socializing. We can take advantage here to sign on to these places and make friends, and help people with thoughtful advice and content and them place your links to your sites and see if we can redirect these crowds to your pages. This is best viral tool if you care to know.

4 Express Yourself
· Opine 62%
· Entertain Others 48%
· Emote 44%
· Be Creative 42%
Surprisingly this category comes 4th ahead of doing business. People love to express themselves and they go online to do this. Although the percentage is still low but there is huge market here as you find customize product for these people to engage them with and probably entertain them, the music category and sport are in these section. It shows our artiste are still not doing much online, we as internet marketers can take this market and turn gold out of it, by creating a place for this category of people. Women are more in the expression game and youths are also doing a lot here.

5 Advocate
· Influence Others 56%
· Activate Support 52%
· Join a Cause 26%
Leadership is a sector that I love so much and it’s about influencing others and creating support or motivation, this sector is still growing. We can do more by creating leadership and motivating sites and create offers for this people. But bad examples is the bane of this category, as most leaders don’t come online to do their leading, instead they are so busy offline, bloggers can use this media to reach their fan club and connect to them and see if we can help to be better than they are now. Great niche, if you ask me.

6. Do Business
· Work 69%
· Manage finances 30%
· Sell 19%
I know most Internet marketers will be shocked at this result. Well me too. I was expecting this to be probably the number one reason or two reason people go online, but we are wrong, we only think so because most times that is why we go online. The also shocking news here is that only 19% goes online to sell things, it shows there are more buyers than seller, huge market!
Most people who go online is because of work related issues,
Men are more into this than women. I think women should begin to also show interest here because they are better communicators than men and can easily sell. Finances are a sore part in people’s lives and then most people are careful not to involve their resources online. The scam thing I think is still affecting this sector. Let’s see how it goes in the next couple of months!

7. Shop

The niche subcategories are;
· Purchase 33%
· Compare 28%

Both men and women do this but women are more in this sector. 33% do their purchase online. I think that is great news for marketers. It also shows the potential is growing. But the subtle niche there is the compare niche. It shows more people want to compare first before they buy. Here reviews site are going to capture this folks and them help them to make buying decisions, thereby making some money for themselves.

Finally, I think these are great areas we could position our sites or blog to reach this people and become an authority in that area and create value for them and then finally sell something to them.
Think about this post. There you go. The people have spoken what they want, it up to you to give them what they asked for.

Have a great time.

Dan Ohis.

PS: please leave your comments.

Why Do People Go Online? 7 Major Reasons Discovered!