Sometimes an article sticks out in my mind. A recent example is a June 23, 2010 Wall Street Journal article that I spent more time thinking about than I did actually reading it. “What Would You Do With an Extra Hour?” summarizes data from the 2009 Time Use Survey from the Labor Department showing how the average American spends their time each day. Many things from the article stood out to me as alarming.

First, the study showed that the average American spends 3 hours and 32 minutes every day doing “work and work related activities.” The second thing that stood out to me was that the Americans spend over eight and a half hours a day sleeping. No wonder they only have three and a half hours a day to work!  The third alarming statistic was that we spend nearly three hours a day watching television. This would help to explain why television advertising rates are higher than print and online rates. If the average person spends one-fifth of the 15 or so hours that they are awake each day watching television, then that is a significant number.

The real subject focus of this Website Wednesday post is the data from the article about time spent emailing and purchasing goods and services. Though the study does not specify how those purchases are made (online or in-store) it does show that on average, Americans spend only 12 minutes a day making phone calls and checking email. This is not a significant number and heightens the importance of effective online advertising. If people are presumably checking email in between sleeping and watching television, your marketing must be laser-focused and drive consumers to your website or else it will be missed.

The data shows that average Americans spend 46 minutes a day purchasing goods and services. If your website is set up correctly to educate and inform your visitors about how your product or service can help them, your business should get some of that spending money. With other things on their daily schedule, like nearly two and a half hours spent doing leisure sports, the time the average American spends online is minimal. Your website must be refined to get visitors to take the desired action when hey come to your site. If your website is poorly designed and does not use language and images that engage customers, the average American will move on to sleeping, watching TV, or playing sports before they spend their time visiting your site again.

To read the Wall Street Journal article online visit http://bit.ly/a19Z0L