Web 2.0 Tools Drive Traffic

The term 'Web 2.0' has been around for quite some time now, but it is not often clearly defined and there are still many online business owners who are yet to take advantage of its many marketing tools and gadgets.

To put it simply, Web 2.0 is a theory of interactivity and online community. Since its emergence, blogging, social networking and all kinds of interactive tools and applications have come to life on the internet. These are tools that are used for communicating, keeping in touch and sharing photos, but they have also become serious methods of marketing that are now detrimental to the success of online business.

Millions of websites exist online nowadays so simply building a site for your business isn't likely to get you a bunch of traffic. You are competing with people around the world, but if you market yourself correctly this will work to your advantage.

A good place to start is with major social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and Squidoo. With each of these sites you can create a business account and market your products or services in various ways. On Facebook you can create a fan page with information about your company, photos, discussions, notes and more. On Twitter you can follow people and businesses and get them to follow you by commenting on their posts and sharing relevant information. All of these sites have a major network of contacts you can reach out to and the key to each one is to continually update to keep consistent traffic flowing.

Using videos for marketing has also become very popular as online communities like YouTube have made it possible for anyone to upload a video and for others to comment on and rank each video they watch. People share their videos by email, on blogs and Facebook making it a very interactive process. The more your video gets passed around the more attention your business will get.

Another tool to consider is online forums. By participating in forums that are relevant to your business and posting knowledgeable and informative posts you can drive targeted traffic back to your website by including a link or even a video at the bottom of each post. These are just three ways to take advantage of Web 2.0 tools and drive more traffic to your business' website.