Nick CaristinosAlthough not all of the sites that list the top 100 visited websites agree on the list of 100 they do when taken collectively give a pretty clear image of what people are looking for online. By reviewing the top 100 website lists at www.Alexa.com, www.Quantcast.com, and www.web100.com, one can gain a clearer picture of what the websites making up the top 100 are about and what we can all learn from them when it comes to internet success.
One only needs look at the lists to see that the top ranking sites fall into the top 10 categories of E-Commerce, Reference, News, software, Search Engines, Banking, Adult, Blogging, Social Networking, and Image Hosting.
Knowing what the top sites are and what they are doing to stay in the top 100 is helpful to any internet business as clear trends can be seen among them. Surprisingly with all of the technology and new internet fads out there the majority of the top 100 sites still rely on relatively old school means to stay on top. Over 90% of the domains in the top 100 websites are .COM names, even as less and less .COM’s are available everyday. It is also interesting to note that over 80% of the content on the top 100 websites is text based with images coming in second place, leaving video and audio with the smallest amount of content. What does this all mean? The internet for all of its variety and people looking for their 15 minutes of fame is still primarily being used for business and as a resource for finding useful information.
So what can a startup or existing business learn from the top 100? Firstly you don’t need a real world store front to succeed. More and more businesses are using the internet to reach a broader customer base with a good majority of them having only an online presence and no real world store front. This means lower over head costs at the same time as a larger potential customer base equaling higher profits for the companies that take the time to find out who their customers are, what their needs are and how to best serve them in the online market. Register the best domain name for your website that you can as a .COM as well as other extensions and use free tools like Webnames.ca domain forwarding (included with every domain name purchase) to forward multiple domains to your main website, to drive the most possible traffic to your site. Thirdly make your site clean, clear and easy to follow, although images and video can be fun and trendy add-ons to a site your, meat and potatoes should still be text based, using tools like Webnames.ca Web Builder to get your site up and running even if you don’t have a lot of website design experience. Get your site listed on search engines and aim for the highest rankings you can so people can find you easily. And most importantly don’t forget that great customer service, reputation, and ease of use will go a long way in keeping your customers coming back once you are up and running. Webnames.ca can get you up and running with your domain name, hosting, Web Builder, SSL and domain management needs, who knows with a little research, hard work and focus you could be on next years list of top 100 websites.