What is Web 2.0 and What Does It Mean for Your Website?

By: Mike Seidle
You may have heard the phrase "Web 2.0" a going around and wondered what that means. The term has been around for a little over a year now and it has a lot of impact for any company wanting to use the Internet to do business or even gain leads.

What is Web 2.0? Web 2.0 refers to an across-the-board change in the Internet and how it functions. While there are numerous changes I could talk about, there are three major categories that can sum them up: 1) Tagging instead of directories 2) Metrics and "cost per click" instead of page views 3) Dynamic instead of static content

Tagging instead of directories - Many of us can remember back in the day that when you went to yahoo.com you didn’t get the deluge of pop-culture and news data you see today. Nope, instead you saw a simple list of directories broken down by categories. At one time you where in click heaven when your website appeared at the top of one of those directories. Now, the "Web Directories" has taken its humble little place as one little button on the top and a small window near the bottom of the page.

It was a dream once that all the website on the Internet would fall into neat little categories we could browse through. But that dream is long gone as the Internet has proven itself too big a beast to tame. Now, we search pretty much just by keywords. And even that has changed. You can’t just get ranked because a word appears more times in your page than another. No, you have to have relevant AND continually updating content.

Metrics and "cost per click" instead of page views - I remember launching my first website and getting a little thrill as I logged in a saw my little counter at the bottom growing and growing. Even today, I still hear people boast about how many hits their website gets a day... "But how much does your website earn for your company?" I ask - "Well, not much" they reply.

Getting hits is easy, there are billions upon billions of hits to go around. The problem is that not only are many of those hits just people passing through, some of those hits aren’t even real people. Today, we need to be more sober about page hits. Companies with successful websites have to track where those hits are coming from, what are they looking at on the site, where are they losing potential customers, how much each hit costs, and how many hits cause a sale. In reality, a site can go down in hits but up in sales. When a site is marketed successfully it becomes for efficient.

Dynamic instead of static content - Before Web 2.0, companies used to invest in pretty highly graphic content. Today, the web doesn’t look nearly as pretty, but it is a lot more useful. It takes a lot of time and effort to make high-end websites that sing and dance, and they don’t really return the investment not give a visitor a reason to return.

Successful websites focus more on continually updating content to both attract and KEEP potential customers. If a website is done very well, companies will find themselves being linked to from other websites via RSS or other news links because they are offering information other people find valuable.

What Does It Mean for Your Website?

If your website is any older than 6 months, chances are it was designed under Web 1.0 concepts. Updating your site is essential for maintaining a presence on the Internet and having your site contribute to your bottom line. Continual revisal and optimization for the ever changing world of search engines will set apart the winners from the wannabe-s.

Your website has to be a part of day-to-day life in your company. If you have a website that you built just to sit on the web and look pretty, it is going to sink to the bottom of sea while your competitors are swimming to the top.