Web 2.0 was a phrase first introduced by the O’Reilly Media Web 2.0 conference in 2004. Web 2.0 encompasses a vast array of trends that have sprouted from the early days of the Internet. These trends have led to an increase in creativity, functionality, accessibility, security, communication and collaboration on the Internet. In a way, Web 2.0 refers to a redefined and refined Internet foundation for people to build on.
A major increase in Blogging and Social Media is an effect of the Web 2.0 revolution into a more user-based system, where users control the majority of the data online. Rather than organisations providing users with data, Web 2.0 focuses on the exchange of data between users, forming a social gateway. YouTube, for instance, would not exist without this method.
So how does SEO come into the Web 2.0 idea? Firstly, since the Internet has become more user-based, many companies have come to see the Internet as the most cost effective marketing solution to reach the largest audience the world has to offer. The Internet is essentially the world’s biggest stage, and every website is a performer. So it is essential that to be a good performer, one would need to gain as much interest from others as possible.
SEO provides a method of ensuring that a website has a higher chance of standing out from the other 30 billion or more web pages connected to the 100 million or more web sites. It is vital to have good SEO built into your site to be seen on the Internet by a large group of people. It acts as a powerful tool to separate a site and allow it to compete for users. More simply however, it allows search engines to find sites effectively and quickly. Imagine a library book that does not have a serial number. It would be far harder to find than one using a decimal system. In a similar way, a website cannot be found if it does not use a system of arranging a website’s content.
So the Web 2.0 environment that forms blogs, forums, social sites, rss feeds, video streams and more has revolutionised the web and changed our lives by providing a convenient and interactive enclosure that surrounds everything we do, and SEO takes advantage of this fact by acting as a marketing strategy to optimise a system of management and categorisation.
