It's Day 17 in the Growing Your List challenge, and we're focusing on Content Marketing strategies.
So far we've looked at article marketing and blogging as a means of Increasing Your Reach and finding ideal subscribers for your mailing list. Today we'll look at publishing content on Web 2.0 sites as a way to get both targeted traffic and quality inbound links.
For Day 17, refer to pages 42-44 in the 31 Day Guide to Growing Your List
Let me start off by saying that this is not a must-do task for everyone, or for every promotion. There's a time when it's necessary, and a time when it can be skipped...
What Are Web 2.0 Content Sites?
Web 2.0 content sites are social content publishing platforms, allowing you to create topical pages or groups of pages on a micro-topic. They generally have internal rating and voting systems, in addition to other social or community features. They operate on user-generated content.
Examples of Web 2.0 Social Content Sites include Squidoo and HubPages.
Here are other sources with lists of popular Web 2.0 content platforms:
There are many places to publish your content around the internet that will give you both exposure within that community and inbound links to your own web pages. Some of them will also give you "indirect search engine rankings" and a few of them even offer Revenue Sharing options.
When You Should Consider Using Web 2.0 Sites
As I mentioned in the beginning this strategy is not for everyone. For starters, it's incredibly time consuming. And it simply may not be necessary depending on your specific marketing strategy and/or the depth of your niche.
I mentioned it's time consuming. Yes you can just publish content there the same way you would with an article directory. But to have a truly successful Lens or Hub Page (etc) you generally need to get more involved and actually participate in the content community. You need votes and likes and such in order for your content to rank well within the community itself. Of course, just posting content alone can have a few perks as well - but not near as many as "working it".
Personally I find it to be more time consuming than I prefer, and if I choose to use this strategy - I outsource it. Each Web 2.0 content site has it's own format and community to learn, and I simply don't have the time and patience to get that involved.
I feel my time is better spent publishing on my own domains, Guest Blogging on popular blogs, and using some of the more popular mediums: YouTube, EzineArticles, etc.
That said, there IS a time and place to use Web 2.0 Content Sites. Particularly if you are working in a deeper, more competitive niche and have hundreds or thousands of long tail keywords to target. In that case, it pays to go the extra mile and get all the exposure and links you can - whatever it takes to achieve a top ranking for your Primary Keyword Phrases to attract potential subscribers to your squeeze page.
It basically boils down to just how many inbound links you need and/or how many keyword phrases you are targeting.
Your Task For Today:
Decide whether this strategy is something you need to use in your marketing plan. If so, determine whether you will invest the time yourself or outsource this task so that you can focus on creating content and products. Either way, create a list of the Web 2.0 sites you want to focus on, and which long tail keyword phrases you want to create content for on these sites.
Best,
About Lynn Terry
Interesting stuff Lynny! I keep getting the feeling of squidoo and hubpages lurkking in the background, but also consider them to be too time consuming.
I think I prefer the idea of guest blogging and forum posting, but I also think the best way to know for sure is to find out!
I prefer to put content on my own site. Article marketing and hubpages have (unfortunately) been a waste of time for me. Maybe i did it wrong, but I didn't get the results everyone is telling us about. Having more content on my own domains gives me more possibilities to get incoming links and also gives my sites more authority.
I've never had the patience to deal with Squidoo and such either. I'd love to know more about how you outsource this, though, because I think they can be a good tool to keep handy - just not one I want to use myself.
I know few people who are using web 2.0 sites for their link building. Some find this strategy very effective especially if they are using each site in a much decent manner. Meaning posting from time to time rather than doing 10 posts within a day. No doubt, this can help.
I am interest to know how I could perfom a Google search to find my own list of web 2.0 sites - what search term would I type in to only find web 2.0 sites?