Been wondering how to use tags for social bookmarking (of your own posts and pages) to get more targeted traffic to your websites and offers?

Basic Web 2.0 Bookmark and Tagging Principles

Social Bookmarking sites are subscription based websites that allow internet users to save links to their favorite pages. Operating much like your browser Favorites, these lists of favorites are generally more organized, themed, or categorized.

The social aspect plays in when these lists of favorites are made public – viewable and further classified, rated, or organized by other surfers.

The organization quotient, tagging, is the manner in which either the author of the resource or the person bookmarking the resource categorizes or classifies the information. Tags are usually one to five keyword phrases.

If you’ve had a website for very long and your main source of traffic is through the search engines via search engine optimization of your pages you’ll quickly see the beauty and the value of tags. This is keyword relevance ‘proof’ by the masses.

And it hasn’t taken the major search engine players long to catch on. As a matter of fact most have been waiting for this type of voluntary feedback as it allows an engine to offer more relevant results to the masses.

Search Engine History and Basic Theory

Skewing search engine results by keyword stuffing, buying links, reciprocal linking, automated blog commenting, and the like, are all techniques once employed with good results by many webmasters to gain more traffic and higher search engine ranks. Read the rest of this entry »

Search by: tagging, bookmarking, website, search engine

There are tons of “How To Succeed With MySpace” reports and e-books being sold now (and franky they drive me around the bend because I see no good end for people who invest hours into promoting their urls or products there), but there is only one digital product available right now that actually talks about the pros and cons of making your own Web 2.0 site. You can actually follow along as the writer builds a site from the ground up!

I’d thought of doing this myself but the site I’m launching has been a dream for 2 years and is only just now coming to fruition. I may introduce it here at a later date. In the meantime, see what Rich is up to by clicking on the green book graphic (top left) of all my pages.

The site the author’s creating differs from the Web 2.0 site I want to show you next. However, the core principle is the same – it’s all about people.

The site I’m featuring in this post, and I don’t do this often here as I have a separate area set up for Web 2.0 site examples, is www.WishHood.com.

If you haven’t seen or heard of it yet, prepare yourself. You’ll likely be hearing about it soon. The developers are busy, they’ve even created a widget that bloggers, site owners, myspace users can insert into their own pages. See mine here. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m still hearing and reading about people saying things like:

“Web 2.0 doesn’t exist!”

“Web 2.0′s bubble will burst, just like the dot-com bomb in the beginning!”

If that’s what you think, it’s okay, but you can’t keep your head in the sand and survive forever…

Have a look at what MediaPost Publications’ November 7th issue has to say about Web 2.0, or Business Week’s June 5th issue, or O’Reilly Radar’s write up almost a year ago today.

O’Reilly Media – I keep talking about them because they coined the term – recent report works hard to define Web 2.0 and states:

“Web 2.0 is much more than just pasting a new user interface onto an old application. It’s a way of thinking, a new perspective on the entire business of software—from concept through delivery, from marketing through support. Web 2.0 thrives on network effects: databases that get richer the more people interact with them, applications that are smarter the more people use them, marketing that is driven by user stories and experiences, and applications that interact with each other to form a broader computing platform.”

Now if you’re not sure what all that means to you as a website owner, and how you can get more traffic using Web 2.0 strategies, allow me to explain…

Websites that get the traffic, make the money, have huge resale value, sell more products, and all the other trappings of success, are websites that: Read the rest of this entry »

Search by: Web 2.0, traffic using Web 2.0

A subscriber just wrote me from another site asking:

“Laura! What’s all this talk about traffic with Web 2.0? Is SEO dead?”

No, search engine optimization (the high-end webmastering techniques for preparing your site for high rankings in the search engines) is certainly not dead. However, not much is new in the SEO standpoint of building website traffic so I don’t write much about it anymore.

After all, once you understand the importance of backlinks, latent semantic indexing, theming, etc., and you’ve got those top ranks for your chosen keywords, what’s left to do for more traffic?

Well…you could pay for it. You could trade it. Or you could just get your ads, offers, self, in front of your customers more often.

Yes, I said ‘self’.

If you don’t have time for this, then put in the effort for strategizing and hire a student to do it for you.

One better is to set up a 2.0 web site that is so catchy and exciting your target customer is going to land on your site just for kicks.

I’m sure you’re scratching your head over that one. “Just for kicks? You want me to build a website just for kicks?”

That’s right, I said ‘just for kicks’.

And the reason why I said it is due largely to the current research I’ve done on 2005-2007 surfer activity trends for my Web 2.0 project. I’ll admit most of my research has been US and Canadian based but that is the lion’s share of my own target markets.

I know there are a lot of sharp business minded folks eager to scoff at Web 2.0 due to the fact that the profit model is seldom discussed in business plans for these sites. Unless of course you consider the buy-out option. Check out YouTube selling for $1.65 billion, or MySpace, or any of the other 2.0 styled websites that were once free for the user but now have their profit venues in plain sight.

Our sharp business-minded friends just haven’t looked closely enough. Just haven’t considered perhaps the variety of ways a Web 2.0 site’s traffic could be the first point of contact for a market that is impossible to reach by any other means. Read the rest of this entry »

Search by: Web 2.0, traffic

I’ve had a few emails this month from people who want to know more about marketing via social networking on myspace. I’ve been asked to write a review on the ebooks that are selling now, or provide an instructional piece on how you can do this.

Friends, it isn’t going to happen.

Not only that but every marketer’s list that I’m on that is promoting such rubbish and waste of time has seen my finger on the unsubscribe key. I suggest you do the same because your best interest is not the heart of their emails – selling you short term rewards for their own gain, is!

I know the stats in for the final quarter of 2006 and that MySpace was kicking statistical butt for traffic (some say double google’s traffic).

But…

There’s are a huge host of reasons why you don’t want to market your wares or run a social networking campaign there.

I hope you find some of these shocking and disturbing. Disturbing enough to stop taking traffic advice from people who just want to sell you something…anything…just to earn a buck.

Marketing on MySpace

First off, creating profiles on MySpace isn’t a sound investment of your time regarading the future of your business.

Taking time or expending energy to build content and links from websites you don’t own or control is a serious mis-use of your work day. Unless you can accomplish this with a click of a button (such as posting a new link on del.icio.us or quick cut and paste of one of your pre-written classified advert on craigslist, etc.).

Don’t ever work hard to create a presence or space on a free resource without reading the fine print.

This is precisely the reason why I’ve been telling people for years to get serious about their business and get their content off blogspot (google’s free blog accounts). So many have been misled into thinking that because google owns blogspot that their content will receive more traffic and higher PR if they host their blog there. Read the rest of this entry »

Search by: social networking

Sometimes I’m cautious about the content in my public posts. I don’t enjoy controversy, but I hate to see the public misled so I’m not about to shut up and play it safe.

This is one of those posts.

Web 2.0, Is it Hype?

I’ve been reading some other writers, bloggers, and marketers articles on the topic of Web 2.0. You’ve probably run across a few of these yourself. I’m talking about the writers who say Web 2.0 isn’t real, it’s all hype, just a joke to get you to spend more money on website creation software and scripts.

“Hello? Is anybody home? What part of the astral plane are you on, man?”

Web 2.0 is real, yes it exists and not only that, it’s stealing your traffic (and likely has been for quite a few months now, insidious and wretched beast!).

Tell me, in the past few years as online users has nearly doubled, if your traffic has doubled and held? No? Not on any of your websites?

Likely not and here’s why…

Web 2.0 has been slowly sneaking in the back door as the new and improved sister. It’s feature-rich and a lot more fun than the text and image sites of yesterday. As business owners we’ve probably looked upon these sites as time-wasters. It doesn’t matter really what you think of or call them – you do need to take notice of them as they are holding your traffic hostage with all their bells and whistles, groovy graphics and personality.

Web 2.0 is not hype. It’s just a new name for a new website flavor.

Web 2.0 is also not hype because the very lifeblood of internet business – traffic statistics – prove that 2.0 is stealing the show in popularity rankings.

Finally Web 2.0 is not hype because even the big offline businesses are taking note. As they do, they build sites to match their market. As a matter of fact just last month I was watching a television commercial for a hair care line and they promoted their interactive 2.0 style site at the end of the commercial. (As soon as I find it again, I’ll post it for you as an example – I just don’t watch much television so the product and matching site have now escaped me.) Read the rest of this entry »

It’s Saturday evening as I write this to you – just 12 hours+- before folks around the world herald in the New Year with goals and hopes for 2007…

And even though I’m loathe to bother you on a weekend or during such a special holiday season, I did want to talk to you a bit more about Web 2.0 and how you can benefit from the changes that are upon us.

TRAFFIC! The lifeblood of any online business.

Web 2.0 has already started changing the face of website traffic – where your visitors come from, and whether they’ll be spending, subscribing, or simply leaving your site in boredom (we’ll get to the ‘hold them there’ techniques another day).

Last week I disclosed to you one of my earlier Web 2.0 traffic techniques (if you missed it, see Web 2.0 traffic technique).

Then I sent you in the direction of a group of respected marketers who are teaching us to use 2.0 sites to send oodles of visitors to your existing site(s).

The audio and transcript is still free if you want to check it out again – see Harnessing Web 2.0 sites for Targeted Traffic.

BUT…

What’s missing here is an in-depth and thorough explanation of Web 2.0 – with an explanation of why it’s taking over the internet.

I CANNOT stress this enough. Read the rest of this entry »

Search by: Web 2.0, website traffic

Wow!

When I sent an email out to my list on Wednesday I had no idea how popular the topic of (and so many questions about), social proof for websites, traffic from tagging, or the power of back links…

And I certainly wasn’t aware that so many readers would have a problem with the name of Sean Wu’s new product (and create
assumptions about the value of his course on tagging and social bookmarking) without even reading his sales letter or course.

But perhaps that’s to our advantage…

Because if this technique for traffic and positioning doesn’t reach the masses we’ll have it made for many, many months (perhaps years) to come. And even if it does reach the masses we’ll still gain lots of extra traffic from learning how to do it right.

So let’s clear up some confusion about tags and social bookmarking okay?

Social bookmarking (aka page, site or image tagging) is the process of using a web service to keep track of your personal bookmarks. The difference between using your browser’s bookmark list and an online bookmark service is that the online version is public.

Online bookmarking sites include technorati, del.icio.us, digg and many others. I won’t get into the reasons why these sites have become so popular by humans and search enigne spiders alike – just trust me on this one – it’s hot. Read the rest of this entry »

Search by: traffic, bookmarking