In general, I think that more Google products you use the more you get an idea of what Google is doing for you. I use Google webmaster tools to submit sites and sitemaps and of course get an idea of what is being indexed and which pages are being found on searches as well as their positioning. Google analytics gives me an idea of what pages are being visited and so on.
As to optimising, the same general rules apply with regards to backlinks, content, headers etc. Google just has better methods of tracking what is working.
