Recently, Google presented the first ever webinar on three important Google tools. The webinar was titled “The Google Trifecta: Webmaster Tools, Analytics, Website Optimizer” and it is available online until October 9, 2008.

The webinar was presented by Google own team members including Michael Syszomierski on Webmaster Tools, Jeff Gillis on Google Analytics and Tom Leung on Website Optimizer. The three tools are free but very powerful in improving site effectiveness and functionality.

Google tools can be used in sequence:

1. Google Webmaster Tools is used to maximize site exposure and increase traffic.

2. Google Analytics is used to uncover key insights such as taffic sources, visitor trends, and keywords performance.

3. Google Website Optimizer is used to identify site improvements; for example, evaluate performance of different versions of site design to choose the one that brings the best conversion.

Google continues to provide exceptional support to webmasters by providing these tools along with great educational resources such as this webinar.

Let me answer the second question first: why should you care about Search Engine Optimization? If you have a website or you think about having a website then you should care about Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO.

As a search engine optimization practitioner put it when talking to his entrepreneur friend, “if you’re in the shower and you just thought of a business idea, the next thing I want you to think of is me”. While I won’t suggest for my client to think of me in the shower, this is how early and how important search engine optimization is for online marketing.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Wikipedia defines Search Engine Optimization as “the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords”.

How do People Find Websites Online?

Three Sources for Website Traffic:

1) Search Engines: When you look up information on Google, you get websites listed as search results. Some of these websites are displayed in prominent positions because their owners paid for the terms you searched for. These listing are called “paid” listings; the rest is called natural or “organic” listings.

2) Direct Traffic: In this case, the person knows the exact website address (URL) and enters it directly into the Location Bar of his/her browser.

3) Referral Sites: A person can land on a website by following (clicking on) a link from another site (the referral site).

Why Are Search Engines Important?

According to Marketing Sherpa, almost 134 million people in the U.S. regularly use search engines when looking for information online. Of that number, 63 percent look only at the first page of results–at most.

The three major search engines being Google, Yahoo and MSN where Google has 46.47% market share (or 28,454 millions of searches) . Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engines

How Do Search Engines Index Websites?

Search engines use software called a “spider” to discover websites, evaluate them and add them to their database also called the search engine’s “index”. The spider “crawls” the web by following links in websites they visit. A link to a website is considered as a vote. When many links point to a particular website, the website is given a higher PageRank.

There are other factors that influence the ranking of a website. Search engines, like Google, do not share the specifics of how they calculate the PageRank, but they provide guidelines to webmasters on how to create search-friendly websites.

It is the SEO practitioner’s job to keep up-to-date with these recommendations and help her clients adhere to them; failing to produce a search-compliant site can result in poor site performance or worse yet, search engines dropping the site.

Another important factor that affect the volume and quality of traffic to a website is keyword selection and usage. A balance between keyword popularity, relevance and competitiveness is needed to produce optimized content that drives more search engine traffic to the site.

What Is the Job of an SEO Practitioner?

• Choosing the right keywords
• Analyze competition
• Building site links
• Submitting site to Search Engines and Search Directories
• Monitoring site Ranking
• Analyzing and reporting site results

“It is not the job of Search Engine Optimization to make a pig fly. It is the job of the SEO to genetically re-engineer the web site so that it becomes an eagle.” – Bruce Clay

SEO Resources

For SEO resources, check out my post 10 Top SEO Resources.

This is my hand-picked, very favorite,  top 10 11 Search Engine Optimization (SEO) resources:

1. http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/: Google’s Webmaster Help Center with basic and essential information on the subject. After all, isn’t best to hear it from the horse’s mouth?
2. www.webmasterradio.fm: Internet radio, podcasts for marketing and SEO. I’m hocked on this site. It’s very cool to listen to the industries top players and get a glimpse of the industries hot events from the convenience of one’s own work station.
3. www.searchenginewatch.com: Search Engine Marketing Tips & Search Engine News. This is one of my first sites I found on SEO and has been great to find many other resources.
4. www.searchengineland.com: Search Engine Marketing resource is run by Danny Sullivan- one of the biggest rockstars of this industry. If you’re learning about SEO and haven’t heard about Danny Sullivan, you haven’t learned enough yet!
5. www.sempo.org: Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization. Find online training resources and check out the Learning Center; I also like their webinar series.
6. www.ask-kalena.com: The Daily Search Advice Column by Kalena Jordan, founder and tutor of Search Engine College. Kalena has been my SEO mentor since I took SEO 201 from Search Engine College.
7. www.searchenginecollege.com: Fun, easy and affordable online short courses in search engine optimization (SEO) and other search engine marketing subjects. check out my other posts: SEO Certification by Search Engine College and I’m now SEO Certified
8. www.bruceclay.com: SEO and SEM consulting service with a lot of useful information on the subject
9. www.searchenginestrategies.com: Global conference & expo series with education and exhibition on search engine marketing
10. http://searchmarketingexpo.com/: similar to the above conference in focus; programmed by Danny Sullivan & Chris Sherman
11. http://www.highrankings.com/: this site contains great article on search engine optimization essentials.

If you have others that you absolutely love, feel free to share in the comment section!

For those who are serious about learning web design and its concepts and new standards, here is my favorite book from O’Reilly: “Learning Web Design” by Jennifer Niederst Robbins. This book is “a beginner;s guide to (X)HTML, style sheets (css), and web graphics.

This book was a great insight on using HTML markup for structure and css for presentation. I heard this concept for a while, but couldn’t quite grasp it until I read this book. It gave real examples with downloadable files and it’s structured more like a classroom in a book so you can follow along the lessons. Jennifer also gave some exercises to test the readers understanding of the material and provided the solutions so reader can check their work. Since I actually was working on menus for my clients, the menu example really came in handy.

This is my very absolute favorite book on web design and I highly recommend it for anyone trying to understand the concepts of HTML markup and CSS.

“Mastering CSS with Dreamweaver CS3″ is a new great book from New Riders (Voices that Matter) by two CSS authorities: Stephanie Sullivan, co-lead of Adobe Task Force for WaSP and wrote teh CSS layouts included with Dreamweaver CS3, and Greg Rewis, Group Manager of Creative Solutions Evangelism at Adobe.

The book begins with some background information on the (X)HTML Document, CSS and the concept of laying out HTML pages with CSS. Three of the seven chapters give a step-by-step examples (with downloadable sample files) for a Fixed Layout, Liquid Layout, and Elastic Layout Web sites. In Chapter 4, the authors demonstrates how to use Dreamweaver CS3 to migrate a Table-based Layout to CSS Layout. In Chapter 6, Stephanie and Greg show how to build a Gallery Site with CSS and Spry.

The book has a very pleasant style and layout with color images and side notes. Even with its technical context, the examples were very easy to read and follow, even if you’re not doing the examples online. Stephanie and Greg also presented a few great tips and tricks for using Dreamweaver CS3 and CSS, eg, the faux column technique which gives the illusion of two equal height columns.

I’ve been a Dreamweaver user for a few years. Late last year I learned about Dreamweaver CS3 (through Adobe’s eSeminar series) and learned CSS from another great book by O’Reilly called “Learning Web Design “. It was a good, but rough, background to start designing websites with Dreamweaver CS3 and CSS. I’ve been waiting for this book for a long time. I read three chapters in the first week and was able to learn a lot of new techniques and tips I already used on my next design project.

However, a few things can be added to this book to make it even better. Definition and explanation of CSS best practices and Web standards would be helpful, specially in understanding some design decisions in the examples. Also, Dreamweaver CS3 has many many choices for HTML layout. This book only covers three of them. It would be useful to give an overview of these layout and some pros and cons of each to help in deciding on the layout when working on a project. Another useful information to include in this book would be a Resources and References section.

Overall, this is a great book for anyone serious about designing professional websites with Dreamweaver CS3 and CSS.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to techniques and strategies used to increase a Web site visibility by search engines and bring target traffic to the site. The field of SEO is young (started around 2001) and Search Engine Optimizers (SEOs) are highly in demand. I recently decided to ride the waves and start my training in SEO. I plan to advance my skills in SEO (and SEM) in order to provide my clients with exceptional services.

I’m very pleased to announce that I have successfully passed SEO201 Certification course from Search Engine College. I received a 30 out of 30 for my final exam, and a total course grade of 96.73%!

With Advanced Search Engine Optimization I have SEO training in the following:

• Site Architecture
• Text Content
• Dynamic Content
• Graphics- Flash and Splash Pages
• Frames and Tables
• Link Popularity
• Pay For Performance
• Measuring SEO ROI

I’m currently doing SEO for The Summit Club, Katherine J. Anderson Design/Interiors, Palmetto State Base Camp (new site coming soon), and Web Bright Consulting.

Search Engine Marketing is a hot an exciting field and I love to be part of it. Thanks to my friend, Leyla Mason, for bringing it to my attention and encouraging me to look into it.

There are many options when considering professional training in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Ron Jones, had two great posts on Search Engine Watch on SEO Training: The first was on “Online SEO Training” options, and the second on “SEO Training: Live and In-Person” options.

I have been a Google Analytics user and had some basic knowledge of SEO, but I wanted to further my skills and be certified in SEO. Since the online option better suited my schedule and budget at that time, I researched it further and contacted a couple of the sources offering SEO certification. One of them was Search Engine College, founded and directed by Kalena Jordan from Ask Kalena, the popular “Daily Search Engine Advice Column” .

Search Engine College (SEC) has a number of courses and Certification Pathways on the subjects of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Search Engine Advertising, Link Building Strategies, Web site Copywriting and Web site Usability. There are two “Course Styles” to choose from: Certification (”these courses are tutor-supervised with a tutor assigned to guide students through the lesson material and review their assignments. Students who want to receive industry-recognized SEC Certification for a particular subject must take the Certification version of the course under tutor-supervision and make a 70% overall pass”) and Self-Study (”Students who take a course via self-study do not receive tutor-supervision, do not submit assignments and do not qualify for SEC Certification). Currently, course fees range from USD 145 (for a single Self-Study course) to USD 1,195 (for Certification Pathway).

You can sign up and pay the fees online with a credit card. Then you receive an email with student access information to log in to the Student area where you can access the course material. Lessons can be downloaded as PDF. Once you finish a lesson you can test your comprehension by taking a 7-12 multiple choice Review Quiz. For Certification courses, students have to “Pass” a number of Assignments. The Final Exam is worth 30% of the grade, and it’s a timed multiple choice questions.

I signed up for SEO 201 (Advanced Search Engine Optimization)- Certification- on the beginning of April and was able to complete the 10 lesson course in 5 weeks. I was very pleased with the course and my interaction with Kalena. SEO 201 covered topics on Site Architecture, Text Content, Dynamic Content, Graphics, Flash, Frames and Tables, Link Popularity, Pay For Performance, Measuring SEO ROI and even had a bonus lesson on Starting Your Own SEO Business. I learned a lot of good skills that I’m already using to optimize my client web sites for Search Engines.

I highly recommend Search Engine College and SEO 201.

One of the popular methods for creating navigation menus for Web pages is using drop down menus. By mousing over any of the buttons of the navigation menu, the user is able to learn about some of the content of the corresponding pages without visiting them first. Some drop down menus are nested two or more levels allowing the user to access sub pages by one click. This makes drop down menus user friendly from Usability point of view. However, most techniques used to create drop down menus involve some sort of scripting (mainly JavaScript) that add behavior to graphical buttons, as shown in this example. Since search engines don’t index JavaScript and most of them can’t follow links embedded in graphics, this makes drop down menus search engine incompatible from an SEO point of view.

Building Drop Down Menus with CSS and Dreamweaver CS3

A more search friendly technique for creating drop down menus is using CSS and HTML. A List Apart published an article showing how to create a horizontal drop down menu using CSS. In this case, the navigation menu is created with HTML as a nested unordered list with all the items created as text links that can be easily indexed by search engines. However, this method can require some coding by the designer. Luckily, Adobe implemented drop down menu widget (called Menu Bar) into their Spry framework for Ajax (which comes with Dreamweaver CS3). As an example, the drop down menu for this Web site was created using Dreamweaver CS3 Vertical Menu Bar (view the Page Source for code details). Since the drop down menu in this case is created with basic HTML tags and styled with CSS tags, this makes them search friendly as well as user friendly.

Yesterday, I added my Interior Designer client to the Google Local Business Center. Since my client provides services to customers in her geographical area, this would be a good option for local search.

The process of adding a business to the Local Business Center was very simple. It consisted of a few screens asking for business information, including required fields:

• Country
• Company/organization name
• Street address
• Main phone (additional phone numbers are optional)
• Email address
• Website
• Business Description

Other business information that are optional include business hours and method of payment. You can also add up to 10 images and 5 videos posted on YouTube. In addition, you have the option of adding custom fields. Since I wanted to highlight her photo gallery, I added it as a custom field along with its URL. Of course you can also add one or more business category.

When finished with adding the business information, you’ll need to verify it. Google has two options, either they call the business number you provided or they send a postcard within 2-3 weeks sent to the business address. Since I’m doing this on behalf of my client, who I doubt would care to hear from google, I requested to get the postcard and asked my client to let me know when she receive it. I would need to enter a PIN number to complete the verification.

So, how much does it cost to list your business with Google Local Business Center? Nothing! Nada! It’s FREE!

I can’t wait to receive this postcard from google to finish the verification and see the results on the site’s stats! Tune in for another post!