6 Essential Steps for Success with Web 2.0 Sites

Having difficulty getting any success in ranking your site and in online marketing? With the birth of all the web 2.0 services and portals, ranking well should become easier, not more confusing. But I know – there is a huge information overload for everybody who gets started.

If you are buried in the pile of web 2.0-ness, don’t fret, here are six steps for starters.

#1. Jot it in a notebook and plan a time to start.

Two days back, you read from a blog that you need can submit sites to Digg. Yesterday, you listened to a podcast and they told you go Twitter yourself. Today, you read another email saying that Hubpages is the “in thing” and is the best way to get great rankings and traffic.

Which is best? Well, for starters, you probably don’t know. But you know what? I don’t know either.

What I know is every site can be a source of link and traffic, but almost 100% of time, simply registering for an account in any of these services won’t get you any.

So this is what I recommend. When you hear of a new web 2.0 service that can drive massive traffic to your site, STOP. Jot the URL down on a notebook and schedule at least a half day for you to get started on that site.

#2. When you start, really spend time to start.

Like in my previous point, registering for accounts everywhere will not give you more traffic. It will only give you more usernames and passwords to remember. Once you have scheduled time to get started with a new web 2.0 service, spend that time just doing that. The amount of time each person will spend may vary. Some will take 2 hours, and other will take 2 days… but here are some things you need to resolve or get done within that period of time.

Fill up your profile properly.

Nothing irks people more than a LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter profile with the default profile pictures and a bio with nothing filled out but a username. Take time to fill in information about yourself. It can be the same one liner you use everywhere, but fill it in.

Customize your page as much as possible.

There are probably a million or more people using the same service as you. For example, everybody’s Twitter account starts with the same cyan-ish sky background… and I don’t remember any of them. But I do remember Darren Rowse’s big face on his Twitter page, and Mark White’s gray and orange background.

If you are not a designer, don’t worry. Your site does not have to be beautiful – just be pleasing to the eye and more importantly, unique.

Post your first article, tweet, lens… whatever, and invite your first friend

Friendster will not be friendster without friends. Hubpages will not be hubpages without hubs. Twitter will not be twitter without tweets. When you start, do actually USE the service for the first time. If you don’t have an article to post, stop, and write one on the spot! This will not only help you familiarize yourself with the service, but also help you get started building links and traffic.

#3. Set up your tools and computer environment.

Photo Credit: flattop341

Some people love to use TweetDeck for twittering, some don’t. I don’t use any twitter clients and I love it this way. I use Snipr to shorten my URLs though, and I use a bookmarklet to efficiently do that.

The point is, find a set of tools which you are comfortable with to use everyday, and customize your computer environment to use these efficiently.

For example, if you use TweetDeck, you probably have to have TweetDeck on and running in the background all the time. If you take 15 seconds to start up TweetDeck everytime you want to tweet, and you post about 20 tweets a day, guess where 5 mins of your life has gone to everyday?

Little times like these add up.

#4. Set up your schedule.

How many hubs are you going to create in a week? How many tweets a day? How many slideshares a month?

Photo Credit: Joe Lanman

How much time are you going to spend on every service? Set up your schedule to make time for these things, and make sure you stick to it. Most Web 2.0 sites can be a horrible waste of time, with Facebook and YouTube standing in the first two positions for that.

So if you are going to schedule 1 hour to watch a few YouTube videos and post comments, or embed 3 suitable videos in your blog, then spend one hour. Don’t try to watch the whole 50 episodes of Desperate Housewives in that one hour. Don’t even start playing the first episode.

#5. Commit to your schedule for at least 3 to 6 months.

3 months is about 13 weeks. If you’ve taken a “2 hubs a week” schedule, you’ve created 26 hubs. If you’ve paid enough attention to linking between hubs and stuff like that, 26 hubs is good enough to drive some decent traffic and get some good rankings.

Note: none of the top hubbers have less than a 100 hubs.

Want better rankings and traffic? Create more hubs. No, I cannot guarantee that you will have more traffic because that will depend on the quality of your hubs, but if you don’t create more hubs, I can guarantee that you won’t get more traffic.

Hubpages is an example. My point is, don’t skim the surface on 100 services, go deep and build big in 5. Depending on your schedule and how fast you work, you should probably work on 2 to 5 social media sites at one time. Don’t spread yourself too thin. You know you are too thin when you’ve written one article and then getting flustered over which site to post it to.

Remember: Web 2.0 and social media marketing is about building relationships, trust. Relationships and trust comes easier with credibility and authority. Credibility and authority comes easier with a proven track record. A proven track record comes from more content (hubs, articles, tweets, diggs… whatever it may be)

#6. Rinse and repeat.

After you have completed your 3-6 months on one project, or until the time you find that you have created a substantial base in that web 2.0 provider, then take a peek at your notebook and look for the next service.

Then repeat from step 1!

Have you followed these six steps (or variants of these) in your web 2.0 and social media marketing efforts?

… and by the way, I’m working on Twitter and Hubpages now. Add me.

Tags: digg, ezinearticles, hubpages, Social Media Marketing, twitter, web 2.0