There are an estimated 1,733,993,741 internet users in the world, which is a 380% increase since 2000. You might like to know this as you plan your marketing strategies for the coming months.

There are lots of fun facts at Internet World Stats about how many internet users there are and where. Here are a couple of charts to get you started, but check out the site to get details.

Text is perhaps your website’s most important asset. Make it flow with these quick tips:

1.  Research shows that most people don’t read – they scan instead. Therefore, make the most highly trafficked pages easier to scan. If your current site consists of large blocks of text, break it up so that it’s easier for the average internet user to scan.

2. Consider using bullet points, short sentences and bold text wherever possible.

3. Write your meaningful headlines instead of vague or cutesy.

Short and simple works!

Imagine this. The potential customer has found your website. They’re looking, they’re focusing, they’re reaching for their mouse… but where will they click?

Of course, we want them to click on a link within our site, and not bounce away from the site. Then we  want to see them click our call to action.

What are some ways you can improve the chances that a customer will stay on our website?

1. Improve readability. Add white space, or change fonts (see 7 Secrets for Choosing the Right Font for Your Webpage). Get rid of clutter. Readers are more likely to stay on a site where it’s easier to see the information.

2. Write great headlines. Attracting readers is a big part of the game. But don’t write outrageous headlines that don’t match the content. Readers will learn to distrust your site and will go away.

3. Include customer testimonials. These compel the reader to trust your claims, increasing the chance they’ll look around on your site.

4. Have videos on the site. A picture’s worth a thousand lines of HTML, as they say.

5. Have a blog where employees contribute. Prospects are more likely to trust the people behind the company versus the “company.” Adding the opinion of real people, even customers, can be of more interest to the readers.

6. Make your call to action obvious on your landing page. Be sure to include the solutions that you are providing also. The place to click needs to be obvious.

7. Put most important information above the fold. Users need to see the crux of your message without having to scroll.

8. Make it easy to find information. You’ve been on those sites where it’s just difficult to find what you’re looking for.  If it’s easier for the reader to go back to the original search and try another company, they will.

9. Provide access to tools your customers need. Assessment tools, links to useful sites, or calculation tools will keep users coming back, even if they aren’t buying today.

10. Have a prominent Search Box. Users need to have an easy way to find just what they are looking for.

Look at your site from a consumer’s point of view. What would drive you away? Try some of these tips and watch your bounce rate decrease.

Website Magazine recently featured their pick of the Top 50 Websites, based on “popularity among Web professionals, the business community and consumers.”* It’s an interesting mix of sites, including search engines, professional publishing support, social networking, and sites for content and article publishing, among others. Whether you need to increase brand engagement or visibility, or improve traffic to your website, there’s an eclectic mix on the list of sites to choose from. Here are the top 25, or visit the full article to get all 50. Be sure to check out the sites you haven’t visited yet.

1. Google.com
2. Yahoo.com
3. Facebook.com
4. YouTube.com
5. MySpace.com
6. eBay.com
7. Bing.com
8. AOL.com
9. WordPress.com
10. Ask.com
11. Blogger.com
12. Twitter.com
13. Adobe.com
14. Photobucket.com
15. Answers.com
16. LinkedIn.com
17. Digg.com
18. EzineArticles.com
19. Metacafe.com
20. Ning.com
21. Yelp.com
22. Tagged.com
23. Alibaba.com
24. Scribd.com
25. PayPal.com

*”Website Magazine’sTop 50 rankings are a measure of a website’s popularity. Ranks are calculated using a proprietary method that focuses on average daily unique visitors and page views over a specified period of time as reported by multiple data sources.”

I have a good friend of mine who runs an eCommerce company who owns several negative brand URLs relating to her brand. A negative brand URL is one like www.________Sucks.com or www._______IsEvil.com.

Many large companies, including Xerox and Dell Computer, spend countless hours and thousands of dollars buying negative brand URLs. But you know what? Most marketing directors have way too much on their plate to be spending time trying to snatch up every .com, .org, .biz, etc. with their brand name on it.

Quite frankly, there’s a better approach. And that is to embrace the people visiting the site and listen to their concerns. If you can change 1 out of every 5 people’s opinion on the negative site, you’ll have created an army of people who will tell others, “I used to hate ________. But they listened to me, acted on my issues and fixed my problem. Now I’m a huge fan of _________.”

To be sure, that’ll be labor intensive, too. But as as the protector of your brand, you have two choices:

1) Try to squash dissent by buying up all the negative URLs, which will be impossible;

2) Embrace the dissenters and try to convert 1 out of 5 from brand haters to brand lovers.

It’s a challenge, and it won’t be easy. But it’s the best solution out there and I’d encourage all marketing directors to explore this option.

Hey, guess what? 2008 is a repeat of 1998.

I’m serious. The web is hot again and marketers and venture capitalists  are trying to figure out which web properties will be the Next Big Thing.

An article in this week’s Fortune Magazine outlines some of the Web 2.0 start-ups that are getting a lot of the buzz. The article does a great job of highlighting Twitter and pointing out what all the fuss is about.

Fortune is one of those publications that should be sitting on every executive’s desk. Plus, just one or two articles are worth what you’d pay for a year’s subscription, so I’d encourage you to subscribe. (And no, they’re not paying me to say that.)

Here’s an excerpt from the Fortune article outlining some of the hottest web properties marketers and businesspeople should know about:

Dig
Online-content-sharing site.  Rumors persist that Google is interested in buying it.

FriendFeed
Customized content feed for your social-network page.  Started by Google alumni.

iLike
Music recommendations and playlists on social-networking sites.  Partnered with RealNetworks’ music service Rhapsody.

Mint
Free personal finance site.  Think of it as a no-frills Quicken.

Ning
Do-it-yourself social network—kind of like your own custom Facebook.  Co-founded by serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen.

MyYearbook
“Safe” social networking site for high schoolers.

Yelp
User-generated reviews and recommendations of restaurants, bars, and other local businesses.  Now an iPhone application.

Zynga
Free games—poker, blackjack, Sudoku, and such—for Facebook, MySpace, and other social-networking sites.