Web 2.0 sites can sound daunting at first.

Even the term is a bit weird. After all, aren’t we all on the same internet? If so, how can there be a second one?

Actually, web 2.0 is just a shorthand term like so many we use in many walks of life.

The main criteria is that people don’t just visit a web 2.0 site, they interact with it.

This interaction could be as simple as clicking a video or as complicated as keeping all those status updates happening in somewhere like Facebook.

Or it could be simpler – entering into a discussion by posting a comment on a blog, answering a poll, clicking “like”, rating a book.

All of those – and more – seem to count as web 2.0 stuff.

Personally, although I’ve always favoured article sites as being natural backlinks, I also quite like a few of the web 2.0 sites.

My personal favourite used to be Squidoo but they are sadly no longer in existence.

I’ve left this page on site but it’s now more a reference to what used to be 🙁

It’s marketing friendly so long as you stay away from topics that have been spammed to death – weight loss, that kind of thing. There’s a whole page devoted to topics that they don’t allow because they take more policing than it’s worth. If your topic is likely to be in it, just check it out before devoting too much time.

They also tend to flag things like brand named drugs, even if you’re just mentioning them in passing. So if you get a message that your content is unacceptable then that’s the kind of thing to look for. But generally they’re quite relaxed.

Squidoo picks up ranking in the search engines nicely as well if you point a few backlinks to it. The usual suspects – articles, videos, etc – work nicely. Just keep away from spammy backlinks. Treat it as though it’s your own site.

At first glance, Squidoo is a bit weird but after you’ve made your first few lenses (Squidoo’s name for a web page) you’ll find it second nature.

Basically, Squidoo divides each page into a series of modules and you’re expected to use at least 5 of these before you can go ahead an publish your lens. Any less than that and it stays in a state that only you can see as an author. They introduced this to keep spammy content at bay and it seems to be working reasonably well.

You can include links back to your site and Google will notice these links and give them some kind of recognition. How much recognition depends on umpteen factors, the same as it does with any other page, but because Squidoo is big and gets crawled regularly, your link will at least get noticed fairly fast. And that’s often more than half the battle.

You can also include links to other things -maybe affiliate commission programs, whatever you choose.

I’d also strongly suggest including at least one of your videos on each Squidoo lens. This works on several levels. Firstly, it adds some eye candy to your lens. Secondly, YouTube takes notice of the times a video is republished (which is what you’re doing by including it in your lens) and that helps your video to rank.

And if you’re happy enough to share the commission with Squidoo (they’ve got to make money somewhere!) then you can add modules for Amazon and other products. There’s a whole range of products you can include on a commission share basis. You can also opt to share some or all your commission with a nominated charity.

At the time of writing, there were just under 1,500,000 Squidoo pages in Google. Which is why pages on the site gets ranked quite easily.

One of Squidoo’s rivals is HubPages.com (they’re the ones that Seth Godin sold out to)

It’s currently got over 4 million pages indexed by Google.

Much the same as Squidoo, you set up a page (called a hub) and put content on it.

I personally don’t like it as much as Squidoo but it’s regularly in the top pages for searches. Not the top level competitive ones but certainly the next level down.

There’s a much lower limit on the number of links you can put on a HubPages page, which is why I’m less of a fan, but it responds well to promotion and you can start to create your own mini network of sites that you have some control over.

Consider including a link one way between Squidoo, HubPages and any other web 2.0 site you create.

I haven’t got the time or inclination to keep that kind of list up to date but if you do a search on Google for “list of web 2.0 sites” you’ll get plenty of ideas.

Although I haven’t used it for ages, one of the other biggies is of course Blogger.com. Since it’s owned by Google it gets crawled regularly. You’ll get taken straight to a login page where you just enter your regular Google account details and take it from there.

Blogger tends to work more like a conventional blog – you put up posts each time you want to add new content. But you can add the juicy interactive stuff quite easily.

If you don’t like creating long content then Tumblr is a micro-blogging site. Although it doesn’t have a maximum length of post that I’m aware of, it definitely tends towards shorter but regular posts.

A lot of Tumblr posts are just pictures. So if you have a photogenic topic in mind then Tumblr is a good option. As is Pinterest which is mainly pictures but with the option to comment, etc.

All these sites encourage interaction. You can follow other Tumblr bloggers, comment on Squidoo lenses and much more.

That’s part of what makes them web 2.0.

It also means they can be a time sink if you’re not disciplined!

Once you’ve made some pages on various web 2.0 sites, you should promote them a bit.

Point links from an article or two at each one. Maybe even create a new video or put up a post on a document sharing site.

While you’re waiting for them to get indexed, do some work on your own site.

I find a good plan is to divide my time roughly 50/50.

So about half the time I’m working on content for my own site and the other half I’m doing some kind of direct or indirect promotion of it.

Don’t sweat over the exact proportion.

It’s more important that you do something rather than nothing!