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Web 2.0. Say it out loud because it’s here. But what is it?

In a word, Web 2.0 is the name given to the post dot-com boom and bust of Internet growth. It’s been impressive, hasn’t it? Companies like eBay, PayPal and Amazon.com have proven that business can be conducted on the Web and it can be profitable. Now the rest of us can have our turn.

Internet growth and business management in the post dot-com bust world can be described in one word: Collaboration. If you’ve been wondering how to tap into this Internet boom you’ve got to learn how relationships are built online and capitalize on it. There are no lone rangers online.

While collaboration is the key to success in the Web 2.0 world, it helps to know the tools available to you as you embark upon your new venture in cyberspace. Here’s a short list:

• Blogs

• Content Management Systems

• Wiki

• RSS

• Affiliate Programs

You can expect this list to grow. The question that is probably on your mind is, “What can I do with these tools?” That’s a good question and the answer is, Whatever your imagination unveils. Nevertheless, here are a few tips:

Blogs – If you don’t have a blog by now, you’re behind the eight ball. Blogs are the first step into Web 2.0. They allow you to start a conversation with your customers, to enter into dialogue with the marketplace. You can update your customers on your business plan, survey or poll your customers to find out what they want and receive feedback from your customers by allowing them to comment on your posts. Of course, you can always have a collaborative blog where more than one blogger makes posts to the blog as several successful and high profile blogs have already done. Example: Church of the Customer.

Content Management Systems (CMS) – A CMS is an easy way for you to manage your website’s content. It’s almost impossible not to have one in the Web 2.0 market. Unless you are planning to learn programming languages like HTML and Java, or you have the money to hire a full-time webmaster, then you’ll benefit from a CMS. There are three ways to go about this, however:

• Open Source

• Purchase a System

• Design Your Own

Which of these ways is best for you depends on your goals and circumstances. Just know that a CMS can shave off a lot of time in your marketing and business plans. You can upload content to your website in just a few minutes as opposed to a few hours. This is something you definitely want to learn about. Examples: Joomla and Drupal are two open source content management systems.

Wiki – The ways to use wiki have not been fully explored yet but what you’ll need to understand about wiki technology is that it is intrinsically collaborative, unlike HTML. Wiki allows you to build a website without spending time uploading content. This is true collaboration and gets right to the heart of what Web 2.0 is all about. One famous wiki, Wikipedia, allows users to add encyclopedic entries and edit content input by others. This is truly amazing technology.

RSS – Another Web 2.0 technology we couldn’t live without is RSS. There are several acceptable meanings to this acronym but the one I prefer is Really Simple Syndication. In essence, if you’re not syndicating your content then your content is getting found. Everyone is doing it, or should be. And anything can be syndicated – blogs, articles, Web copy, news, jokes, anything you put on your website. RSS allows your website visitors to subscribe to your content and receive updates automatically every time you change or add to your content. Yahoo! Pipes is the latest RSS tool to appear on the scene and gives users the ability to mash several RSS feeds into one.

Affiliate Programs – It is difficult to fit this one into the Web 2.0 model without a little imagination but it’s a powerful tool for building any Web business. An affiliate program allows you to build a sales force that will promote you, your products and your services for you. The great thing about affiliate programs is that you don’t have to pay your sales force until they make a sale. You can build a list of business partners, most of whom will become your customers before anyone else even hears about your new products just because they want to try it out first so that they can help promote it and make extra income. Don’t overlook this powerful method of building your Web 2.0 business. One of the foremost authorities on affiliate programs is Allan Gardyne at www.associateprograms.com.

Web 2.0 is all about building online relationships and collaborating for maximum growth. To succeed online, you must be willing to shed your lone ranger mentality and develop partnerships. My most successful ventures were a result of joining forces with someone else. I’m confident that yours will be too.

With the advent of today’s troubled economy, advertisers are looking for reliable, affordable and feature filled marketing tools to build their business. To fill this void many are turning to email marketing services. When compared to the U.S Postal Service and other forms of advertising, email marketing is not only faster but much cheaper. You can make campaign changes almost instantly and update subscribers in a short period of time.

Campaign Costs And Features

An email campaign of 10,000 subscribers can be initiated for less than $18.

Campaign packages include tracking statistics that allow small businesses to increase sales.

Tracking features can supply critical data for reports that allow you to know who opens and reads your newsletters and the urls they click on. Monitor sent to a friend, compare monthly changes in size of subscription base.

Tools that allow for split testing ad copy to find the most effective sales content.

After you have created your email capture page and have added the email capture code. You can begin collecting names and email addresses.

Once you have built your list, you’re ready to start your first email campaign.

Email marketing providers have made it easy for even a novice to run a campaign with ready made templates and fill-in forms for auto responders and newsletter content.

Can-Spam Act

Email marketing services have made it easy for internet marketers to be Cam-Spam compliant.According to U.S law all email marketers must comply with the  Can-Spam Act of 2003, which requires they identify who they are. Provide valid contact information and a physical address (P.O Boxes acceptable). Many email marketers these days will use a double opt-ins. when signing-up new subscribers. Opt-ins sign up from an email capture page by typically including just a name and email address. This will trigger an auto responder asking them to verify that they do wish to subscribe. Can-Spam also requires that you provide an opt-out link to remove anyone from your list who requests it.

Email Marketing Service Providers

If you are looking for a cheap email marketing services with lots of features then GetResponse may be the deal for you. Allowing you to maximize your dollars and reach more subscribers. GetResponse.com an Implix product located in Wilmington Delaware established in 1998. Get Response features include

• Sending unlimited emails Up to 10,000 subscribers for $17.95 per month and $4.50 for each additional set of 5,000 subscribers

• Excellent Email Marketing and support Forum• Integrates with Joomla• Co-registration• Track software downloads

Pay As You Go Email Marketing Services

Can’t afford a monthly fee for email marketing? EliteMail (now EliteAnswers) a Pay as you go Email Marketing service.Cost

• Sign-up costs $10 which buys 1000 emails.• The free trial on Small Business and MySpace Editions “No Credit Card Required” allows you to test the service out and there is no time limit.• If you sign up for the free trial and buy the $10 package that will give you a total of 2000 emails.• You can buy additional emails as needed.

Aweber

Aweber one of the oldest email marketing services with over 10 years of experience in the email marketing services business.

Staying current with today’s technology Aweber includes features like RSS to Email allowing you to convert your Blog’s RSS feed to an email newsletter.

Features like publishing your newsletter to twitter to help broaden your customer base.

Free Email Marketing Tips

Aweber helps newbies get started in email marketing with free webinars.

Topics include how to use Aweber services, get more subscribers, develop and find content for newsletters and email campaigns.

If you have no time to attend webinars then take advantage of the video tutorials and knowledge base library.

Aweber Pricing

Basic campaigns cost $19 monthly for unlimited emails to 500 subscribers. Larger packages run $149 monthly and allow for 25,000 subscribers. There are a total of about 6 packages and pricing for these will fall in between these ranges depending on the size of subscription list.

In closing

Whether you choose to pay your email marketing service provider monthly or pay as you go, email marketing services can be very affordable. The ability to be scalable will allow cutting expenses and expanding as you see a return on your investment.

Many new Internet marketers know that they must build tons of back links. That’s easier said than done. The back links will bring along SEO benefits with them. In other words, back links help boost search engine rankings. The more quality back links a site has, the more likely it is to rank well in the search engines. For any SEO campaign, there should be 2 areas of focus – on-page factors, and off-page factors. Link building is essential about off-page factors. Although it’s easy to understand, it’s harder to execute, since you don’t own the sites that link to you. It makes sense to start with on-page factors because those are elements that you have full control over. Here are some tips on how to optimize your site before even going into link building. Use a simple template. Many websites tend to use CMS (Content Management Systems) to publish web pages online. Popular CMS include Joomla and WordPress. When you use a CMS, you will also be using a template for your website. It’s fine to use a template. The problem is, some templates come with so much unnecessary bells and whistles (e.g. widgets) that they make the site less friendly for the search engines. Always keep in mind that your site should be as friendly as possible when the search bots crawl your site. In other words, the bots must be able to discern what your website is about. If you add too much fluff on it, the bot finds it hard to find out the main theme of your site, and thus assign it a lower rank. Use static URLs. Popular CMS do come with static URL options these days. A static URL looks something like your-keyword-here.html instead of ?p=139 Obviously, a static URL is easier to remember. Your CMS should also include the keywords in the static URL. These words will appear in bold in the search engine results whenever someone uses those keywords to search for information. Use keywords in title tags. This is no SEO secret. Most Internet marketers already know that they must include the keywords in the title tags for their website to be search engine friendly. However, once in a while, you may still come across a site that uses the same title for every single page. For example, you see “Danny’s Website” in every page title. That is not the right thing to do. Create a site map. To ensure that the search engines find and index all your web pages, create a site map. The site map is a static web page containing all the links to your other web pages. Search engines love site maps because they make it easy for the search bots to find all the web pages. Once you have optimized your site, it’s now time to build as many inbound links as you can back to your websites. Remember to use your target keyword phrases in your anchor texts. Don’t use “click here” in your links. Instead, use something like “my keywords” in your links. That will help improve your search rankings.