Just a bit about search engine optimization.

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 things first: you are very likely wondering what Web 2.0 is. Unfortunately, there is no single easy answer here; Web 2.0 is a set of ideas rather than a specific entity. It’s a collective term for dynamic, interactive sites like blogs, social media and social bookmarking platforms as well as social networking sites. All of these are easy to work with and can be used to generate targeted web traffic for your site.

Social media sites are the ones you hear about most in everyday conversation: MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter primarily. No doubt a new one will come along in another year or so and be the next hottest thing, but right now these are the ones that people use most to drive targeted web traffic to their websites. On these social media sites, you have what amounts to a sociable resum that lets people know who you are, what your site is about, and why they should go there.

The way to keep the interest of other users on social networking sites is to update your profile page with new content on a regular basis. If other users visit your profile and find that you haven’t added anything new in nearly a year, they’re a lot less likely to click on over to your website. People have a lot of choices online and they’re looking for the newest information, the newest products and so forth.

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.

Twitter allows you to automatically update your MySpace and Facebook pages. From your Twitter account, click on “settings” in the upper right. In the Account tab, scroll down until you see “You can also add Twitter to your site here.” If you click on it, you’ll see options to add MySpace, Blogger, Facebook, and other sites. Once you choose them, copy and paste the code onto your other pages and Twitter updates will post there as well. This is a great timesaver.

Digg and other social bookmarking sites allow users to share content they find interesting with others. You can set up a Digg account in a matter of minutes and in case you were wondering, you can use Digg to bookmark your own pages – there are instructions on the site to do just that. Of course, what you really want is for other users of these social bookmarking services to add your content to their Digg accounts, which helps to drive targeted web traffic to your site.

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 some cool stuff including a book about increasing targeted web traffic using Web 2.0 concepts. For a limited time, you may pick up a complimentary copy by visiting his internet marketing strategies site.