The Universal Desires of Internet Users

The Common Desires of Internet Users

Everyone wants to find more information on a subject and to connect with people who share similar interests. Essentially, what you're trying to establish is your own personal community of information and people. This is often referred to as your niche or target audience.

Starting Your Search

Your search begins with your favorite search engine.

Search Engines and Directories

The top ten search engines are a great place to start your research. Personally, I begin my research with Google. I recommend hitting at least the top five search engines and directories.

Here are the top five:

• Google
• Yahoo
• AltaVista
• Excite
• AOL

Review the top 10 results of the keywords used in your search from each of the top five search engines. This will give you a solid lead to begin your quest. Your next task is to visit those 50 websites, weed out the useless or dead links, and begin to form your community. Bookmark all websites that hold interest and promise.

The Internet: A Global Communication Platform

The internet is a mysterious, scary, exciting, fun, never-ending adventure that is full of daily learning experiences. Whatever reason brought you to the internet, you will soon discover that the internet is all about communication. In fact, the internet equals global communication.

Email: The Foundation of Communication

The foundation of that communication is email. Therefore, your next step is to reach out and connect with the community of people you seek by sending emails, always without resorting to spam.

With the list from above, decide if it is important to your quest to contact the webmasters of each website. The list of webmasters gives you a good start on which to keep building your community.

Joining a Mailing List

Join a discussion or mailing list. These are communities that already exist and discuss topics of interest by email. The internet discussion groups may be mailing lists, newsgroups, message boards, chat rooms or IRC type chat channels, to name just a few possibilities.

The Power of Your Signature

Never underestimate the power of your signature. During a one week period, my signature was the only form of promotion I used and in just five days we got over 1000 visitors to our unadvertised website.

Ezines/Newsletters

Whatever your interest, there probably already exists a network of publications that tap into your community. Tap into these publications, a few at a time, and you will get an instant pulse on happenings online.

Start Your Own Mailing List

Email is the foundation of global communication on the internet. It is essential to begin your own mailing list of people that agree to receive your email. Perhaps once a week, with a word of interest, you send out a mailing with info directly related to your common interest.

This gives you a basic blueprint to follow to either begin to establish yourself on the internet or expand on whatever you have already accomplished. Once you know why you want to contact people, then you will know who it is you need to communicate with and for what reason. The basic resources outlined above will give you a strong foundation to discover where to reach that special niche or target audience of yours.