---

Guest post by: Brandon Leibowitz Become an Author

Tweet

---

---

In 2004 the term "Web 2.0" was originated by the O'Reilly Media. The "2.0" means that this is the second generation of web usage. Web 2.0 has created a variety of new and innovative ways to promote websites using: social bookmarking, social networking, blogging, Wiki, RSS Feeds, and video feeds. These all allow and encourage user interaction, thus the term "Social" is often involved. Search engine optimization now relies on using Web 2.0 methods to increase web traffic and exposure on the web. Many different methods are now available for new websites to easily build a web presence without spending a fortune. This allows you to market your website to thousands of web users.

Social Bookmarking:

Social bookmarking sites are communities where people can share and view their bookmarks from any computer. The more bookmarks a site has, the more traffic it will receive. The most popular bookmarks are shown on the website's homepage, giving tins of exposure to the URL. This is a form of guerrilla and viral marketing. Each bookmark can be tagged with keywords making it easily accessible for yourself and others searching for the same keywords. People searching for the same tags that are in your bookmarks will see your bookmarks. As more people bookmark your site on these social bookmarking websites, your traffic and exposure will increase accordingly. You can even share your entire collection of bookmarks to your friends and family. This is great for temporarily increasing traffic to your site.

Social Networking:

Social networking sites typically require you to sign up and create a profile about yourself or business. Websites should have a profile on the major social networking sites, such as Facebook and MySpace. Once you have created your site you will want to join groups that are related to your business and industry. You can even start new groups about any topic. The next step is to make friends on these sites. A good approach is to view other related sites and leave them comments, with your link in there. This will draw attention to your profile and ultimately your site. Do not SPAM every profile with your link! Make sure your comments are relevant and deserve a link to your page. There is the chance of secondary links, as people often blog about things they have seen or read in the social networking sites. This can be a tedious process, but well worth the end results as more people will learn about your site and your offerings.

Blogs, Wiki, and RSS Feeds:

In recent years it seems that Google has placed more emphasis on blogs and wiki, rather than forums. Blogs and Wikis are more interactive and have fresh, new, easily accessible content. Blogs and Wiki are a great way to promote, get back links, and add fresh content to websites. It is recommended to blog as often as possible, but one to two entries a month are more than enough. Each post can be linked back to your website, thus adding another link to your site. Also, blogging adds fresh, new content to your site. Remember that content and links are the prominent forces on the search engines algorithm, so the more you have, the better off you are (as long as they are relevant). There are many free blog hosting sites that are SEO friendly, the big two being Google's Blogger and Yahoo's Word Press. Blogs are interactive as comments can be posted, sometimes with links to other sites. It is a good idea to post comments in other people's blogs. Comments should contain relevant information, and if suitable add a link back to your blog or website. RSS Feeds allow for internet users to subscribe to your blog. Subscribers to your blog will receive an email notification whenever you add a new post to your blog.

Video Feeds:

Videos sites such as You Tube and MetaCafe are making video sharing huge. Now anyone can easily post a video online and have tags with specific keywords attached to it. This means that the search engines can pick up the keywords and add the video to the search engine results. Tests have shown that adding a video to the web with proper tags will get it into the top rankings for those keywords. This is only temporary, but a great way to promote yourself on highly competitive keywords. The number of views affects how often the video shows up on the video sharing sites. The more views a video has the more exposure it will receive. Videos also allow for comments to be posted on them, both rating and critiquing the video.

The NoFollow Tag:

As of lately the major search engines have become keen to link building manipulation. Websites have been aware of this for years, using the NoFollow attribute to prevent spiders reading the link and counting it as a back link. Each search engine reads the NoFollow link differently. Both Google and Yahoo follow the NoFollow link, but do not view it as a link for search engine rankings. Ask does not adhere to NoFollow attribute.

I have compiled a list of social networking sites that do not use the NoFollow, making them great for social networking while building up links.

Yahoo 360

Yedda

CREAMaid

Xanga

BUMPzee! (requires RSS feed)

RateItAll.com

Tweako

Related Articles

  Social Media is for Experts Only. Do Not Attempt!
  “Should I or shouldn’t I”
  Using Social Media Effectively As A Business Professional And Author
  Resourcing B2B social media
  Social Media is NOT about Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin
  Twitter Tricks And Tips: 5 Super Strategies To Get Targeted Traffic To Your Site!
  Legal Marketing: Social Media and Law Firms
  Social Media Gains Momentum for B2B Marketers
  Strategies For Utilizing Social Media Outlets
  Social media : why should my business use this resource?
  The Remarkable Growth of Social Media - an Infographic
  3 Steps to SEO Success
  SOCIAL MEDIA: THE NEW GOLDEN AGE OF COMMUNICATING!
  Legal Marketing: Blog opportunities
  How to Make your Social Media Campaign Enjoyable
  How Social Media Helps Businesses Get More Exposure
  13 Signs Your Business is Heading for Social Media Obscurity
  How To Use Social Media For Your Business
  Success Isn't Magic
  Where Are You in Social Media Adoption Curve?

Related Forum Posts

Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas
Re: Kevin needs "social glue" ideas
Re: UPDATES: New Campaign! New Layout! New Ideas!
Re: Marketing 2.0 - What Are Your Thoughts
Re: Social Media Marketing Ignorance

Share this article. Fund someone's dream.

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

** The Passion of the Resume**

Tips for the Novice Traveler

The Priorities Game

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.