- Who uses the internet?
According to Pew Research Center, 79% of American adults use the internet as of March 2010.
- What do they use it for?
Again quoting Pew, 87% of users use a search engine to find information; 78% of users look for information on products and services; and 72% of users buy products and services by utilizing the internet.
- What does this mean for my business?
The internet has overtaken the newspaper as a means of educating the general public. More than 60% of adults in America use the internet to make purchases decisions. Only 43% of adults read a daily newspaper while 48% read the Sunday paper (according to the “State of News Media 2010” by the Project for Excellence in Journalism based on information published by the Audit Bureau of Circulations).
- How does this affect my local business?
Google reported 20% of all searches on its site have a local component. That’s 17.6 billion searches per month that are focused on something local according to comScore’s estimation of total Google searches per month.