More and more people are using Web 2.0 sites to either connect to their friends and family or to create their own hobby or fan sites.
These technologies can be extremely important in your traffic generation strategies because it allows you a method of direct contact with your target market. Done well, web 2.0 technologies can provide you with thousands of visitors plus a valuable boost in the search engine rankings.
There are hundreds of Web 2.0 sites, with more cropping up every day in more focused niches. These are the sites that are of particular interest to the Internet Marketer as you have a tightly focused niche of people who would be interested in your product or services.
Of course, you can’t just walk into a Web 2.0 site and start promoting your product. Doing this will get yourself shot down in metaphorical flames. Marketers who do this quickly find themselves hounded out of the market.
When you use a web 2.0 site you have to use it like you would a list. You have to establish yourself in the niche as an expert, someone to listen to and who knows what they are talking about. Sometimes this means being yourself, other times you may have a pseudnym.
Whatever the case, you need to spend some time understanding the group and the market so that you can appeal to them in the best way. Be helpful, provide valuable information and you will soon be viewed as an expert.
Once you have established yourself as an authority figure you can easily promote your products and services as people will link your expertise with them. It allows you not only to promote your products, but to promote products as an affiliate.
One word of caution is to not spread yourself too thin. Working on a social networking site to establish yourself as an authority can take a lot of your time and if you try to work on too many, you find yourself unable to do enough on any of the sites. Pick just a couple to focus your attention on, one niche site and one general site.
Other web 2.0 sites allow you to create your own websites. Some of these frown on overt commercialism, whereas others are pretty much a free for all.
This type of site is best used to push your product or information site up the search engine rankings.
You create sites on web 2.0 properties using unique content based around your keywords. You then create active links through to your own website. You do some simple promotion of these properties (pinging, social bookmarking, etc) to give them some link juice, and then they will work to boost your website in the search engine rankings.
Whilst this doesn’t give you direct traffic, it will give you a leg up the organic search engine rankings. This will help to further increase your traffic. Plus, the additional benefit is each of these Web 2.0 properties will rank in their own right and get traffic, some of which will be passed on to your main site.
Web 2.0 sites are an incredible method of getting traffic. If you use them properly and spend the time on them, they can help you get thousands of additional visitors for free!
