A realtor contact of mine recently asked about the benefits of business blogging, whether or not to worry about content and idea theft, etc... Here are a few of my observations:
In a move to better represent Web 2.0 properties, one of the world's largest internet benchmarking companies, Nielsen/NetRatings, announced that as of today it will immediately begin using total time spent on a site instead of total pageviews as its primary traffic metric. ( computerworld article )
Many of the new technologies used on Web 2.0 sites, and most specifically the rise in Ajax, are meant to provide a more seamless user experience with less visible page changes in favor of updates to the information already present on your page. This, however, has meant that many Web 2.0 sites have not been able to reflect their popularity and traffic volume as highly as sites with high page changes, like Google Search or MySpace.
Today, Google launched Google Website Optimizer as a service to enable website owners to test different landing pages and determine the pages with the best conversion rates.
Conversions can be sales, downloads, newsletter subscriptions, really any on-site activity that you would like to track.
Google Website Optimizer is integrated as a free service into Google Adwords. Website owners will need a Google Adwords account to make use of the optimizer.
By adding a few javascripts to your landing page, Google will automatically create and track different variations of Headings, photos, quotes and paragraphs to determine the highest converting combination.
For more information, Google has an overview video and video user guide available.
advenir llc