As with so many things in life, the best way to learn about using new, web-based tools and technologies is to just get going. However, even when you climb Mount Everest, you’ll probably want a guide. Who can play that role on the web?Well, you can turn to Lynda to walk you through how to use many different web technologies. She’s not a person (well, actually, she is), but a web based catalog of training materials.

For a subscription of as little as $25 per month, you or your team can gain access to how-to guides to: podcasting, blogging, search engine optimization, and even eBay. Training is video based, self-paced, and surprisingly easy to follow. This site features approximately 290 different training courses.

The next time you’re looking to tackle something like blogging (and here’s a ton of blogging ideas for you), you have somewhere to start. Or a guiding hand for anyone on your team.

We’re all familiar with the Wikipedia (as we discussed in Never too many cooks), the online, user-edited encyclopedia. What would happen if a search engine worked the same way?

We’re about to learn with Wikia, a people driven (as opposed to algorithm driven) search engine, created by the founder of Wikipedia. Wikia’s search engine results are built on trusted user feedback from a community of users acting together in an open, transparent, public way. In other words, you will need to put your own search results into the site, so the search engine can find them. You can do that for free by helping to create “mini-articles” that appear at the top of search terms.

While remembering the rules of Wikipedia (don’t add the equivalent of spam), now’s a good time to go ahead and enter your company and brand information, so it appears in appropriate search results. You never know who might be looking.

You don’t have to leave search up to the big players. There’s an emerging class of search tools that are more targeted and easier to use.

Getitnext represents how a custom search tool can add value to a site that has a lot of content. In this case, the site in question is eBay. Getitnext clears out the extraneous, and often erroneous, items that pop up in traditional eBay search results. Users are presented with more accurate results and incentives like real-time auction countdowns and shipping-included cost. The Find a Deal feature serves up prime items with zero bids and less than 4 hours remaining in auction, essentially doing the legwork for the customers in search of a deal.

Consider partnering or (for you big guys) building a custom search that makes it easier for your customers to find you, shop, and then buy. Auto dealers would be a good example.

If there’s one thing that most people seem to understand, it’s that customers and prospects like to use search engines to find what they want. So, do you have a good search engine on your site?

Now there’s no excuse, because you can easily implement a Google Custom Search Engine. As you might imagine, this service let’s you apply Google search technology to any site or combination of sites that you choose. First, you choose which sites you would like to search (i.e., indicate that you would like to search every page on your company’s domain). Next, you get a simple code that you can put on your site. There – it’s done. Anyone can come to your site and search. You can even put your logo on the results page, just like this good looking version.

For the $100 business edition, you can control advertising on search results pages and customize just about everything you see. Why are you still making your customers dig through your site to find what they want?

It’s easy to forget that you can create and place a search ad in less than five minutes. That speed and ease of placement don’t usually get you anything . . . but now they can.

Try using Google Hot Trends to combine the “in the moment” thinking of traditional PR with the tracking power of search advertising. Hot Trends reflects what people are searching for … right now. It doesn’t highlight what’s hot based on sheer numbers (boring terms like weather), but by focusing on sudden surges in popularity.

For example, a recent Hot Trend is the search term deceptively delicious – the name of a new cookbook by Jerry Seinfeld’s wife. You can use this knowledge to create a related search ad that drives traffic to your site. Here’s one that we put in place in a matter of minutes.

For as little as cents per click, you can target your search ads at the hottest trends. Give it a try.