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What sort of Internet and computer user are you? Do you have heaps of bookmarks that can shoot your straight to your favorite website? If you use Firefox are you an absolute power-user with bookmarks in your toolbar?

Do you have lots of keyboard shortcuts that you use all the time? Do you use the advanced search option in Google to instantly drill down to the information that you need to find?

If you are one of those really advanced Internet and computer users who can zip through a bunch of sites in less time than it takes most computers to go through their start-up procedures do you think that everyone is exactly like you? Do you think that you're no different to everyone else?

Do you think that just because you know all those cool shortcuts and you know how to bookmark websites, so you can go back to them in the blink of an eye, everyone else knows those same shortcuts?

If you think that everyone has the same skills when it comes finding the right sites on the Net or knows exactly how to use Google to find all the information they will ever need about a subject then I've got news for you.

The reality is that there are a lot of people out there who use the Net every day who have no idea about bookmarks ... who have absolutely no clue about how to search on Google ... and yet think that they know the best way to use the Net and their computers and think that Google is their bitch.

Over the last few weeks I've had the sometimes frustrating experience of being in a client's office while they have used the Net to look at sites they want to refer me to or look at sites that we have designed for them or used a search engine to try and find information. These are guys who think of themselves as being very competent when it comes to using the Net and computers and yet the things they do just drive me nuts.

For example, one client was complaining that the colours we had used on his website were too dark and he wanted to show me a site that he visited often as an example of what he wanted.

That was frustrating on two levels. The first frustration was that the dark colors he disliked so much weren't a problem with the site we had designed ... they were caused by the settings on his monitor. Everything was dark on his monitor and what he thought were great colors on the other site were actually too bright and very garish on any monitor that was set correctly.

The second frustration came when, unfortunately, he couldn't show me the site at the time because he didn't have it bookmarked ... in fact he didn't have any websites bookmarked because he didn't know how to bookmark a website. Instead, when he wanted to get to a site that he had visited before, he would go back through his History and it would take him ages to find any site that he wanted to see. I actually sat there for five minutes while he bumbled around in his history trying to find the site that he wanted to show me.

Then, when he couldn't find it, we started talking about search engine rankings and he wanted to know if his site was beginning to appear in Google ... but to check he didn't go to Google. Instead of checking Google he opened up MSN and used the search bar there.

Obviously Bing is not the same as Google but this guy didn't understand that. Nor did he understand that the colors he was seeing on his monitor were not the true colors that were used on his website.

And he isn't the only one I've sat with over the last few weeks. I've sat with some very savvy business people who are really good at what they do and who think that they understand how to get the best out of their computers and their web surfing.

Yet the things that we take for granted ... the things that we would consider that just about every computer user would know ... are complete mysteries to them.

Heck they don't even use a search engine as we do ... when they want to go to a website they start with Google or MSN and type the name of the website into the search field. Some of them even go so far as to type the whole URL of the website that they want to go to into the search field.

So if you've been thinking that you're really just an average computer and Internet user perhaps it's time for you to think again. The chances are that the people you are trying to reach out to and make a sale to are just like the clients I've encountered over the last few weeks.

If they are then you have been aiming your marketing message at a level that's way above most of the people who are visiting your websites. Perhaps the next time you sit down to build some online marketing you need to stop thinking as you do and start looking at the world through the eyes of people who have no clue about simple things such as bookmarks and the correct way to use a search engine.

I know that it's not easy but if you can bring your marketing message down to the simple level that those people can understand then perhaps you'll start to make more sales.