If you have a website and have not used Google Webmaster Tools, you are doing yourself and your website a great disservice.

Google Webmaster Tools is one of the best SEO tools available online. It is also quite intricate. It consists of several different tools and a considerable amount of time and reading are required to fully understand and use each one.

The good news is that you do not have to use all the tools at once. You decide which ones you need most, begin there, and learn additional tools as needed or when time permits.

To help you get started, some basic information on the Google Webmaster Tools is introduced below.

Create an Account, Log In, and Add Your Website

If you do not have an existing Google account, the first step is to create one. Go to www.google.com/webmasters/tools to create a new Google account or log into your existing account.
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For anyone who is unfamiliar with SEO and just what ‘penguin’ might be referring to, the title of this article may look somewhat absurd.

For those of us in the know though, it makes perfect sense – we know that for marketers who were not following Google’s guidelines to the letter (and let’s face it few did) penguin and the panda were algorithm updates to be fearful of.

So what was Google Penguin anyway?

Essentially penguin and panda were changes to Google’s algorithm which altered the way that Google chose which sites to rank highly and which to demote.

This in theory was done in order to improve the effectiveness of Google search results to bring up articles that visitors would find relevant and interesting.  The problem was that it had a knock-on effect for web site owners,  meaning that many businesses saw their sites plummet in the rankings and consequently their traffic dropped drastically as a result.
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2012 is rapidly coming to a close and most organized businesses will be well into the final stages of their strategic planning and budgeting  for 2013.

I wonder how many will have the foresight to grasp (and align themselves with) the major shifts and expanding trends that we can expect for 2013.

Frederic Gonzalo  has written a good overview of the what he sees as the major trends for next year. Although the trends are slanted towards in  tourism & hospitality industry this is a great post as it opens up ideas for discussion and gives you a check list to consider that you may not have thought of.

I have listed the 13 points below, however you will want to visit the main article on business2community.com to get the full heads up and broader view.
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Why is it that creating good, consumable content is now so crucial to bloggers and on-line publishers who want more good quality traffic?

It’s old news that Google has implemented its new ‘search with value economy’ without blinking an eye and their policies and processes have made many former ‘ranking methods’ obsolete.

You cant deny that for the end user this has been good news however, for the web entrepreneur or business that relies on Google for a steady stream of leads and traffic, it hasn’t been quite so positive an experience.

I’d say that even 2 years on from the first Panda Update things are still not any simpler for the average SEO driven website owner. Backlinks have taken a back seat, and figuring out how to deliver google rated value to a site so it shows up for your keywords has become nothing less than confusing.
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