The Role of Web 2.0 In Your Business

We hear of social bookmarking, social networking, and web 2.0 and so on and how crucial it is to integrate them into your online business if you want the search engines to love you. Web 2.0 implies interactive websites that allow users to post content. It encompasses social bookmarking sites, social networking sites, blogs, forums and online discussion groups.

Popular sites like Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Digg, Furl - are all examples of social bookmarking sites. They let you save your bookmarks online so that you can share them with your friends.

Websites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ryze - are social networking sites where you can sign up for free, create your profile and post content, make friends and join groups and forums.

So what is it about these social networking and bookmarking sites that make them so important to your business? Even though social bookmarking has been around for a while, they have gained more popularity now. People can create their personal lists in the form of a web page and others can view this without actually making the effort to search for them. This is especially useful when you want some information but can't figure out which words to use to find it. Also there's no guarantee that the site you want will actually come up, simply because the website owner wasn't savvy enough to use the right keywords even though there is great information on the site.

With social bookmarking, we tend to trust another user's recommendation specially if interests are common. Because of this underlying concept that people trust others' recommendation, testimonials and reviews more than they would a business, these sites are being explored for getting targeted traffic to websites. Obviously likeminded people tend to form groups - and here is where you'd also find niche markets. Offer them something that appeals to them and you get your targeted traffic heading for your site.

The best part about getting Web 2.0 traffic is you don't spend a thing to get it. all you have to do is identify the sites that match your needs, sign up for a free account and create your profile. Some businesses create individual profiles for different products.

You can get more web 2.0 traffic by bookmarking your own websites with the bookmarking sites and share them. You can also bookmark related sites that offer value to your targeted traffic as these can generate good one-way links to your site.