The Search  How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture  John Battelle

'Search' as we practice it every day is a cultural phenomenon currently without equal, and a marketing disruptor not seen since the invention of TV. Its reinvention by Google has not only changed the Web, it has changed the world. For anyone who wants to understand the web, Google, and the future of advertising at its most fundamental. Plus, it's a great read.

Web Analytics   Avinash Kaushik

Kaushik, "the Analytics Evangelist for Google", is also the author of the highly respected web analytics blog Occam's Razor (www.kaushik.net/avinash). The strength of his approach lies in the equal application of both web log (quantitative) data and experiential (qualitative) information to deliver Actionable Intelligence for real world applications. Not only a definitive guide for web analytics, perhaps The Marketing Guide of the Decade, essential reading for anyone wanting to maintain core marketing skills. Excellent and highly recommended.

Google Analytics  Discover where your site visitors come from, what pages they visit, how long they stay, what they buy, what makes them give up, and where they go.

Mary E. Tyler and Jerri L. Ledford

The subtitle says it all. How to get the most from this free Google tool, which is critical to seeing the big picture and accomplishing your most fundamental goals. Another essential text.

Landing Page Optimization The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions

Tim Ash

Avinash Kaushik (above) says, The days of HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion) driven websites are behind us. Landing page testing enables message and delivery experimentation so customers can help shape their own website content. The beauty is that this is a true win-win. Customers get the experience they want and companies get improved conversion rates.

Mastering Regular Expressions    Jeffrey Friedl

Regular Expression, RegEx, is what separates the women from the girls when it comes to web traffic analytics. This is the deeper in digging deeper. You can get by without it, as most web advertisers do, but then, you'll just be one of the girls. Not easy to master, but worth it.

Google Advertising Tools   Cashing in with AdSense, AdWords, and the Google API's

Harold Davis

Another great O'Reilly book, this one for the generalist. It covers all the bases well enough to get you started, and lets you know where you might want to dig deeper for more info. A first rate introductory text.

CSS - Cascading Style Sheets  David McFarland

CSS is all about websites, not web advertising but you can't have one without the other. And if you're doing any part of it yourself, you're probably doing both. An O'Reilly Media book, comprehensive, complete. An excellent how-to and desk reference.

Words That Work  It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear  Dr. Frank Luntz

When everything depends on a few words, as with AdWords, then every word counts. Luntz, consultant to the Republican Party, the man who coined the phrases, 'Contract With America' and 'The Death Tax' and focus group researcher par excellence, emphasis how 'right' is what works, nothing more, but absolutely nothing less. Learn from a master.

The Culture Code   An Ingenious Way to Understand Why People Around the World Live and Buy as They Do    Dr. Clotaire Rapaille

How a French child psychologist charges American corporations dearly for a few key words. Not just products, but entire cultures are reduced to a few words, each one dead on. The premise that we buy with our "reptilian brain" puts this book on track to become a perennial marketing cult classic. An absolutely fun book that reminds you of why you went into advertising to begin with.

Game Theory   A Very Short Introduction  Ken Binmore, CBE, Professor Emeritus of Economics at University College, London, Fellow of the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Why a book on game theory? Why not? You know that Search Terms are essentially auctioned. But what kind of auction is it? And what's the util of winning the bid anyway? It matters. Become the ultimate insider. Plus, it's a great prop to fall out of your briefcase at just the right time.

The Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords  How to Access 100 Million People in 10 Minutes
Perry Marshall and Bryan Todd

There is a "start your own business and get rich quick" cache to the Internet that many "How To" books center around. Written for the small and independent businessperson, at first glance Perry Marshall's book is no exception. But unlike others in the class, Marshall supports every instruction with timeless, proven, direct marketing principles that apply to businesses of every type and size. Ultimate Guide is the place to start if you're running your own show, or if you want a quick, hand's-on guide not only to AdWords, but how it relates to traditional advertising and marketing as well. Perhaps the best in its class.

Don't Make Me Think  A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability   Steve Krug

This brilliant little book, which can be read and absorbed in a couple of hours, is about those times you don't want your customers to think - as in, when they're navigating your website. Krug is excellent at merging the needs of the web designer, the front line in usability, with the need to sell, goals that are too often at cross purposes. If you're a web designer, get this book. If you employ a web designer, get this book.