Web 2.

0 for SEO
Included as part of the Digital Marketing HQ content marketing packages, is a number of mini sites which are also referred to as web 2.0 sites. I thought I would go into more detail about this part of the strategy as some small business owners may not know what a web 2.0 is, or why it is a benefit to ha e them. In this guide I!ll be e"plaining# $hat a $eb 2.0 site is. $hy you should use it as part of your content marketing strategy. How to use them correctly and how not to.

What Is Web 2.0?

%ack in ye olden days... &in Internet time this means before the year 2000' (here were websites and people could isit them, they had te"t on them that you could read and if the webmaster was particularly handy with the code, there may also ha e been some blinky animations or fancy glitter te"t to really spice things up. %ut on the whole, sites on the web were mainly static and information flowed in )ust one direction. $ebsite * +eader. ,s coders and de elopers became more skilled, the data storage got cheaper and consumers got access to faster internet speeds, the functionality and interacti ity of websites took light-leaps forward, websites could ha e a much more di erse usage. My.pace was &at one time' the most popular of this ne"t generation, enabling people to get their own page on the internet and gi ing them an easy way to add content to it. ,lthough My.pace has long been ousted by new faces it was the start of a publishing re olution online, new platforms were de eloped which allowed more than one page per user and people could produce much more content than before. %logging was born. %logging became possible thanks to code frameworks that took away /00 of the technical demands of publishing on the Internet. $here pre iously creating a nice website re1uired e"pert knowledge of H(M2 or e"pensi e design software now there were places that made publishing online as easy writing a word document. 3ow anyone could start a free blog and not ha e to worry about H(M2 or hosting or domain names or any of that nerdy stuff. 4ust sign up for a free account, write your thoughts and hit publish.

,ny !new! style interacti e5blog5publisher type of website is now referred to by many as a web 2.0. (he term also includes .ocial Media, 6ideo .haring, .ocial %ookmarking, $eb ,pps and can e en be used when describing clean and shiny graphics. .ome of the web 2.0 blogging platforms that you may be familiar with include# (umblr %logger&%logspot' (ypepad +eddit

Why Use Web 2.0?

(here are 2 main benefits to using web 2.0 sites for your content marketing strategy#

1. Traffic
7ach of the web 2.0 blog platforms has its own base of users or community - you may ha e heard someone say 8all the kids are on (umblr now days8, and you may remember that there was a time when almost e ery musician in the world had a My.pace page. (here is alue in being on a web 2.0 platform from a community aspect, the kids on (umblr browse (umblr &there are adults there too - this is )ust an e"ample' and bloggers on (ypepad search out and befriend other bloggers on (ypepad. (his means that by creating an account and putting up content o er on these platforms where the people are, we are effecti ely isiting another town with our stall, getting in front of a new crowd and if they like our stuff they may buy our wares &in this case isit our website'.

2. Links
(he other reason to start some web 2.0 sites is for the links, almost all of these sites allow you a link to your website in your profile or bio, and we can also link to our website in the content we publish o er there. %ut before you go rushing out to create 20 accounts to get the profile links, there is an important point to remember, profile links without any rele ant content of the site are ery low alue. 2inks from a site with lots of good &on topic' content is high alue.

+emember point number 9 - traffic, we want to pro ide good content of these web 2.0!s so that the members of those communities will want to isit us at our website.

So How Do We Use Web 2.0?

$ith many things on the internet there are good ways and bad ways to use the tools a ailable, in the 1uest of getting better search rankings &.earch7ngine:ptimi;ation' we call the good ways $hite Hat and the bad - %lack Hat. &(his I belie e is a reference to the old western mo ies where the good guy always wore a white cowboy hat and the illain wore a black one'. (here is also <rey Hat which includes .7: tactics that sail a bit close to the wind but are not considered to be spam. (he way I recommend the use of web 2.0 sites in this content marketing strategy is considered $hite Hat by most. .ome may say it!s grey because we are creating links to our site rather than ha ing links legitimately gi en to us, but we are creating a useful hub of information that would benefit the reader and that is what the internet is all about. .o what!s the difference between %lack and $hite Hat in this case=

(he %lack Hat method &which I really ad ise against>' is to set up a bunch of accounts &usually with
software' post a load of garbage to the site with keywords stuffed in it &usually with software' and then get 900!s of links pointing to the profiles &yep - with software' to increase the link )uice of the web 2.0 site, which then links to the main website.

(he $hite Hat method is to choose a few key web 2.0 platforms, create accounts by hand, post great
information, pro ide alue to the communities on these platforms and get links from rele ant, high alue blog posts. 3eedless to say, I encourage the $hite Hat method. %lack Hatting may work for a while but you could be e"posing yourself to a search engine ranking penalty in future. (his is your business, your bread n butter we!re talking about here, so it )ust isn!t worth risking it in my opinion.

reatin! an" #ratin! ontent for Web 2.0 Sites.

.o you are probably thinking, great so I now ha e to create e en more content, and its going to be wasted not being on my website. It is true that you should put all of your best content first and foremost on your own website. %ut there are ways you can re-purpose some of those articles for your web 2.0 sites and you can also add rele ant content from other websites, so that you create a hub of information and resources on your chosen topic.

reatin!
,s mentioned abo e, there is really no need to write new articles unless you want to. ?ou can re-purpose the posts from your blog in full by copying and pasting the te"t. %ut if you do, make sure the article is inde"ed on your website first. &?our website should get the credit for being the original publisher of the article'. ?ou can check that your article is inde"ed on <oogle by entering the entire url in to <oogle.com search, as

shown below.

If your blog post comes up as a result then it has been inde"ed and no matter where else that article ends up, your site should be seen as the original publisher. I wouldn!t actually use your whole article though. , better method is to )ust select a few key sentences from the article and reword it a bit if necessary to create a teaser or intro to the post, then end it off with# !read the rest of this article here! with a link to the original and full article on your website. (his way you are funnelling readers on that platform back to your site.

#ratin!
@urating content is not the same as plagiarism, or stealing. (he techni1ue here is to find rele ant ideos, articles and other resources and reference them in a post. If you find a good article someone else has written on a rele ant sub)ect then you can use the teaser method from the pre ious section and link to the original article in the same way. (his is going to gi e that website owner a link to his5her content - which is good for them and you get to build out your web 2.0 as a aluable resource on the sub)ect. If you find a good ideo on ?ou(ube, click the share button underneath the player and then click embed, if embedding is enabled then go ahead and put that ideo up as a web 2.0 post, this increases the ideo owners ?ou(ube iew count and if they ha e there website address watermarked on the ideo - some free ad ertising. ?ou may be thinking at this point that you would rather not link to or promote websites that may be your competitors, which is a alid point. ?ou should go for related but not competing content. 7"ample# , carpenter could curate content from tool manufacturers - ideos about the power tools that a carpenter would use, or link to articles about sustainable forestry, wood processing or to some new non to"ic staining products. It!s rele ant and interesting but not from a competitor.

onc$#sion
(here you ha e it, this has been a guide to using web 2.0 sites for .7:, to build traffic and links to your business website - the right way. (his is the same method that I and my team use when we pro ide business owners premium content marketing ser ices, so e en if you can!t hire us to do the work for you, you can still use this strategy to benefit your business. I hope you found this guide aluable, if so please take a second to share it to your network.