The Web 2.0 Trap

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The Web 2.0 phenomenon or the new wave of "social" sites and networks is a godsend for getting traffic in many ways. MySpace, PlugIM, Facebook, Squidoo and the rest (new ones seem to pop up each day) can help you gain traffic almost immediately to a brand new website.

This can make your sites more interactive too and that's vital if you've got a business on the web, building a good relationship with your customers is the lifeblood of a successful business. You may be just idly reading this but I care about what you think of my ramblings, I really do, but that's another discussion entirely.

So, you can get immediate traffic and build relationships.

The only thing that bothers me about all of this is that by using these "authority" sites we are, in effect, making them stronger and not our own sites.

Getting floods of traffic from Google to your own site is something which just can't be beaten at the moment and yet people seem content to get their Squiddo lens onto the first page of Google and not their own site.

Now of course the Squidoo lens can be monetised but don't forget, you should really be using the lens to point links at your site. Use these social hubs but don't neglect your own site.

That's why I'm still in love with article marketing I guess. If someone came up to me and aksed where to start when making money on the net I'd say…

"Write original content for your site. Write articles pointing back to your site. Get relevant reciprocal links and then submit your site to the "social" web 2.0 sites as an extra traffic boost."

Use the power of these new websites but don't neglect the time proven "old" methods.

They still work for me and they'll work long into the future.