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 »

Here we are, the third day of 2007 and “What,” I hear you asking, “has happened to The Stampede Secret?”

It’s being reloaded, rewritten, re-energized - with all the Web 2.0 Traffic techniques to keep your websites, blogs and sales pages busy with loads of targeted traffic.

Traffic that will equate to more subscribers, more sales, higher page rank in google and all the other blessings that go along with working on your online business. The same type of finely-tuned, highly targeted traffic I helped you get in 2004-2006 using RSS feeds and blogs!

You have happened upon the site during the official launch phase (January-February 2007) so it will be a few weeks until there’s lots to see, read or learn from, however I am putting my favorite Web 2.0 traffic talks, ebooks and resources behind the Recommended Resources tab above. If you’d like to go off on your own journey as soon as possible learning about 2.0 they’ll take you along a solid path of discovery! If you can wait a week, stop back in at that time.

There will be lots here for you as I’m finally ready to disclose everything I’ve learned, tested and discovered regarding Web 2.0 traffic for 2007!

More coming soon,

Laura Childs

Search by: Web 2.0 Traffic

If you’ve been trying to buy the Stampede Secret and getting frustrated about that order button not working I apologize.

As I am deep in my own training and testing on Web 2.0 I have decided to devote full attention to traffic techniques that will serve you best for 2007 and have taken the original, the updated, and the best selling ebook with tools product off the market!

If you have an interest in the new course and tools coming from the Stampede Secret, simply leave a comment on this post and I’ll be sure to let you know when it’s released. You’ll need to leave me your email address on the form, but don’t worry, it won’t be publicly posted and only I can access it!

More coming soon!

Laura Childs
Stampede Secret

When we launched The Stampede Secret in 2004 and I started to consult with clients on their site’s RSS Feeds, I was shocked at the number of website owners who were happy to spend $97 on an ebook, but who had never done any basic search engine optimization on their websites - namely keyword research and creating a strategy based on those findings!

It’s been one of my pet peeves for years, as far back as 2000, when one of my clients asked me to optimize his site for a term that no one ever typed into the search engines. I told him there was little sense in me performing the work since no one ever searched for that term and provided him with a list of viable options. But he wouldn’t budge. He wanted to come up #1 for the most obscure keyword phrase, so I fired him. (Have you ever fired a client? It’s a very enlightening stance, “I won’t take your money anymore because the work you want me to do is futile.”

Shortly after I fired all my $/hour clients and started out on my own and never looked back. The money’s been rolling in ever since at a much higher rate, and I’m never tied to my work. I do still work a lot, but it’s ‘my’ work, on my terms and the time I invest in other website owners are humanitarian reasons - never at a billable rate.

But I’ve side-tracked here…

Today is about the very basics of a search engine strategy.

If you don’t know these, then you won’t be going very far with your website.

Keywords, tags, phrases - are used in all marketing whether you’re paying for clicks, soliciting higher ranks on the search engines, or performing some very creative marketing on video, network, or bookmarking sites. Once you have these basics down, the world is your oyster.

I once read a series of blog posts from a highly respected, website traffic expert. He was optimizing her site for a three word keyphrase. I wondered why on earth he was after that particular phrase and performed some preliminary research of the term. Guess what? No one was looking for that phrase either!

He did make it to #1 in the king of the search engines (google), but so what? No one was ever going to land on that search page in google!

Be very careful who you take advice from. For all intents and purposes, the writer above seemed on target. Hooray #1!

Who would know that all his time and trouble was a complete waste of time? Who would know not to follow those strategies?

I’m hoping that you will know, now that you’re investing some serious time into your online marketing training. Read the rest of this entry »

A few notes today for you about getting the most out of WordPress…

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1. The latest WordPress update is 2.0.3
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The update fixes trackback and security issues.

Step by Step Upgrade Notes: http://codex.wordpress.org/Upgrading_WordPress

Latest WordPress Download: http://wordpress.org/download/

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2. Optimizing WordPress for Search Engines
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Blogs are quickly flooding the marketplace and the search engines are adjusting. It’s time to ‘take it up a notch’ and the task is easy with a few simple tools and these WordPress tricks…

Read the complete article at: http://www.smartzville.com/marketing-help/?p=101

To Your Continued Blogging Success!
Laura

p.s. If you’re looking for something to make your blog ‘look’ spiffier to your website visitors you have to check out all the free WordPress templates here: http://themes.wordpress.net/theme-viewer.php

But please remember that the search engines don’t reallly care how pretty your blog is, they want to see optimized content and tags before they give you high marks!