It’s not making a website which is the hard part about getting a new online business off the ground — anyone can do that. The hard part is getting visitors to the site; not to mention convincing them to buy something from you. What you’re going to have to do in order to start bringing in not only visitors, but paying customers is to start using the power of Web 2.0 to drive targeted web traffic to your site. A few ideas follow which you could get started using today, so let’s get right into it, shall we?
First, the phrase Web 2.0 is not one specific thing, but more of a concept that people want to use web pages that are interactive and dynamic, as opposed to static pages that dominated a decade ago. Web 2.0 tactics for increasing targeted web traffic to your website include using social media sites, social bookmarking sites, and blogs. These are all easy to use, and require varying amounts of time dedicated to them.
The chances are that social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace are things you’re familiar with already. These kinds of sites tend to come and go, but these two are the most popular at present and are the top choices of website owners trying to drive targeted web traffic to their sites. These sites allow you to create a profile page which tells others about you and your site and why they may be interested in visiting.
The key to generating interest using social media sites is keeping your page updated regularly. It doesn’t matter so much whether you update daily, weekly, or twice a week or whatever. The important thing is consistency. If people go to your MySpace page or your Facebook page and see that you haven’t touched it in eight months, they’re not going to take the site that it’s tied to very seriously. Web users today want up to the minute information, particularly when it comes to new merchandise, new technology, and new prices.
If you haven’t set up a page on these social media sites, you should do so right now. It only takes a few minutes and it’s very easy. You don’t have to worry about decorating your page or getting all the popular gadgets on it. In fact, gadget overload on a Facebook page connected to a serious retail website is not a good thing. Once you’ve established your pages on these sites, look for people you know, and when you find them, add them as friends. It’s easy to find former classmates and co-workers, and chances are you have a good dozen people already in your life that have Facebook pages that you can add as friends.
The immensely popular social media platform Twitter is something you should already be using (if not, sign up right after you read this, even before you create your social networking profiles). Among its many uses, Twitter is an easy way to add updated content to your Facebook and MySpace pages, among others. Just go to the settings tab in your Twitter account and then down to account and select the “you can also add Twitter to your site here” option. This will give you the option of adding your Twitter feed to your social networking profile pages, Blogger blogs and more. Twitter will provide you with code to copy and paste on to these pages and that’s all there is to it! After doing this, your Twitter posts will automatically be added to these sites as you make them.
Social bookmarking sites are sites like Digg.com that allow people to highlight web content that they like and share it with the rest of the world. Can you bookmark your own pages? Sure. Just set up an account at Digg and follow the directions for “Digging” a particular page. If other people have seen your page, or go to your page and like it, they can add their support to your Digg, which will encourage other people to check it out too. A page that gets a number of Diggs also gets increased targeted web traffic.
A blog has become de rigeur for business oriented sites of all sorts. These are one of the most useful tools for any business; readers can subscribe to your blog content by means of an RSS feed, which notifies them of new content as it is posted. A blog can do a lot for your traffic, as long as you remember to update this page on a regular basis. This isn’t as difficult as you might think — blog posts tend to be short and casual in tone, so this is a good place to mention new products and services as well as news about your business. Just as with your social networking profile pages, you can add a Twitter feed to your blog as well, giving this page another source of regularly updated content.
These are just a few of the things you can do to leverage Web 2.0 tactics to get targeted web traffic to your site. It would take a book to describe all the techniques available, but these can get you started.
All the best. B. L. Marlow
B. L. Marlow writes really great stuff including a book on increasing targeted web traffic using Web 2.0 concepts. For a limited time, you may pick up a complimentary copy by going to his internet marketing strategies site.
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