Internet User Demographics for AC Content Producers

Gaining an audience online involves more than SEO and proper keyword density. The first step to gaining an audience is finding an audience. Even the most searchable articles won't generate many page views if no one is searching for your topic. The bottom line here - to get a larger audience you need to reach a larger audience.

While tools like SEO Book give you raw numbers of searches, what they don't reveal is who is doing the searching. To effectively deliver content you must take into account who your audience is, what your audience does online, and most of all, why an internet user should click on your article. Internet user demographics provide part of that answer.

Internet User Demographics
Please note: Because AC content producers must be US citizens, the focus of this demographical information is on the United States.

Total Internet Users
Approximately 71% of Americans use the internet. This gives you a potential online audience of 215 million people.

What this means: That's a mighty big pie. How big a slice do you want?

Gender
Not a big gap here. Just slightly over half of all internet users are male. The other half is obviously female.

What this means: Gender should not be afactor in article selection. Your potential audience is about the same.

Age
You probably don't need internet demographics to tell you this one. A far greater percentage of young people use the internet in comparison to older individuals. Roughly 87% of adults between 18 and 29 use the internet. Only 32% of people over 65 use the internet.

What this means: Articles targeted to a younger demographic have a substantially greater potential audience.

City or Country
More city and suburban dwellers (73%) use the internet than rural dwellers (60%). Not only is the percentage of users higher, but the sheer number of people who are urban and suburban dwellers (255 million people) far outnumbers the 55 million people who live in rural areas.

What this means: With five times the potential audience, articles aimed at urban and suburban individuals have a far greater potential audience.

What this also means: Competition for those urbanites may be greater.