What does web 2.0 mean to my business ?

What does web 2.0 mean to my business ?

| 5/09/2007

Talking about web 2.0 is in. Designing web 2.0 websites is in. Using web 2.0 social media optimisation is in. Having a facebook and a linked in profile is in. And corporate Blogging; well that is certainly in.

Trends are fantastic and the internet has taken hold of the iconic web 2.0 phenomenon like the drop-shadow of an e-Fish to Water; luckily for web design firms across the world, a new era of web 2.0 design and web 2.0 development has ensued.

You know a concept has sunk in when you begin to hear dozens of somewhat illogical spinoffs. I’m not personally sure how you would go about having lunch 2.0 or starting a business 2.0, but dating 2.0 sounds fun and if email 2.0 makes my day easier, then I’m into it.

But what relevance does any of it actually have to growing your business, finding more leads, getting your brand out there or reducing your offline advertising costs?

Firstly, I must begin with a quick disclaimer that this is not going to become another inductive attempt to define web2.0 by pointing to several particularly web 2.0 features and saying, “That, my fellow bloggers, is web 2.0!”

Without downplaying the importance of myriad of web 2.0 design, technical and conceptual features; at the end of the day, the large majority of business owners and managers should be more interested in what web 2.0 can do for them than reading another top ten web 2.0 innovations.

To set a framework that will be far easier to understand than drop shadows and gradients, lets equate web 2.0 to the Industrial revolution of the early 19th century. Marking fierce technological and sociological change, put simply, everything was to be done differently after this period.

Similarly to the steam engine and internal combustion engine of the industrial revolution, advances in web technologies such as AJAX and CSS have marked [up] a new era of strategic, interactive and service on demand websites. This is the web 2.0 revolution, and it isn’t going anywhere.

Fueled by such changes in technology, web 2.0 has now lead to new era of doing business online where publishing articles, news, and product information online is no longer done ‘to get something up there’ in a hit and miss manner but is strategically targeted and then disseminated to a specific audience who are actively seeking the information that your business can provide.

Think of the one the keys to web 2.0 for businesses as Google and more specifically the use of search engine optimisation to your advantage. We can now know exactly how many people are searching for your services or more importantly seeking information related to your services each month in Google.

So why not use that to your advantage by tailoring your website’s content and framework to ensure that when someone types in “how to write a resume” into Google, they find your recruitment agency giving them advice. No prize will be awarded to the person who figures out who they will choose to be their recruiter should such a need arise.

Think not about filling your website’s product area with pages of testimonials or ensuring that you have big enough images in your about us section and instead, think about educating your audience and providing them with the answer they require when they are searching for anything related to your products or services.

Web 2.0 enables businesses to find out how many people are searching for any variation of their product or information related to it in Google and then strategically optimise a website to attract the traffic, provide information and generate new qualified business through clear calls to action.

Being the leading web 2.0 web design and development firm in Sydney makes it particularly important for all of our team to not only understand what web 2.0 is but how to apply it to each of our client’s businesses.

So come have a chat to us at Wiliam [2.0] and we will map out a strategic plan to ensure your business is the one attracting the flow of new business freely available from searches in Google.

tags: Web 2.0 ,  Business ,  Web Design ,  Technology ,  Online Trends ,  Melbourne Web Design ,  Melbourne