Google was, from the beginning, funded by simple advertisements on the search result pages.  The founders – Stanford PhD students Larry Page and Sergey Brin – were vehemently opposed to using the pop-up ads prevalent at that time.  After moving out of a garage and into a Silicon Valley office, the company became well-established as a driving force in internet traffic.  Soon it would become a driving force in marketing, as well.

Today’s Google is also funded by simple text ads, but on a more sophisticated level than one might think.  Google AdWords is a mostly pay-per-click advertising service that allows any user to set up a campaign wherein their brief text advertisement will appear either at the top or alongside search engine results for keywords related to their services.

A Network of Additional Services
Beyond AdWords, Google has formed a network of additional services for internet users and webmasters alike.

• AdSense.  A way for webmasters to earn money off of their own websites, website owners can elect to display ads from AdWords users on their sites and earn money off of each click.
• Analytics.  Google Analytics allows website owners to track exactly who and how many people are visiting their sites throughout the year.  The system is increasingly thorough and complex, allowing users to see click-through paths (which pages were visited in which order), bounce rates, time-on-page, referral sources, and more.
• Gmail.  One of the most popular email services, Gmail features chat and a large amount of storage space plus customizability.
• GoogleDocs.  A must-have for any office network, GoogleDocs allows users to create documents and spreadsheets and share them with any other GoogleDocs user.  Projects and presentations can also be shared.
• Google Translate.  Google’s translation software – while never word-for-word perfect – is impressively accurate and useful compared to traditional translation tools.
• Google+.  Google’s answer to Facebook is nowhere near as popular, but social media marketers are having a great time with its importance in search results.

Read How Google Works: Part 1 – The Beginning.

Google is undoubtedly the world’s most widely-used search engine, and it’s become one of the richest and most powerful companies in the world.  Consistently voted one of the best companies in the world to work for by Forbes magazine, Google has gone beyond simple searching and built a culture of internet fanaticism.

The History
Google started in March of 1998 as the brainchild of two Stanford PhD students, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.  They were working on the Stanford Digital Library Project, a project designed to integrate all of Stanford’s online materials into one accessible online location.  The two were inspired to create a mathematical system of categorizing web content based on link structure, and Page used it as his dissertation.  The original project – which was called “BackRub,” after the backlinks that the pair were using to determine website value – gave birth to the idea of PageRank, which is still used to determine a website’s value in Google.

Page and Brin released BackRub in 1996, and they registered the domain name google.com in 1998.  Funded by simple text ads (though the founders were opposed to advertising, they had no other choice for funding their project), Google.com has become the most-used and most-referenced search engine in the world.

Over 30 million internet users in Iran are unable to connect to their email accounts, bank accounts, and Facebook – or any other site using a secure HTTPS browsing format.

Since February 10^th, the Iranian government has had a block in place preventing users from accessing secured websites. Though they have not confirmed the reason for blocking encrypted connections, most speculate that the Iranian government is concerned over HTTPS’ ability to allow users to share and communicate without other computers being able to intercept the information.  HTTPS also allows users to interact in secret and minimizes the visibility of their activities to other computers (internet marketing agency web developers use them to create secure login platforms).  Most guess that this block is an attempt by the Iranian government to put in motion a plan to monitor internet use nationwide, and encrypted connections would interfere with this.

Google’s reports show some limited activity on its blocked services beginning February 12^th, which suggests that internet-savvy hackers have found a way around the block.  Time will tell if the block continues or if the hackers will continue to be the only people able to use Gmail, online banking, and many social networking sites.

En la década de 1990 – cuando los motores de búsqueda estaban empezando a tener un lugar importante a través de Internet y en las estrategias de marketing – las palabras clave eran una parte fundamental para determinar si un sitio web se ubicaría en la primera o última página. Para cualquier palabra clave en una página especifica, los expertos en SEO recomiendan usarla una cierta cantidad de veces proporcional a la cantidad de palabras en la página, para aprovechar su máxima exposición. Los motores de búsqueda prestarán mayor atención a los sitios con una densidad de palabras clave (el porcentaje de palabras en la página que son sus palabras clave específicas) que irán del 1 al 5 por ciento, dependiendo a quien le pregunte (consulte con una agencia de diseño paginas web y marketing)

De todas maneras, el algoritmo de Google, está cambiando constantemente – y la densidad de palabras clave no es algo a lo que se deba enfocar mientras optimiza su página web. La cuestión principal es que los robots de Google se han vuelto más sensibles al contenido con  uso excesivo de palabras clave o de relleno y los ingenieros han cambiado el algoritmo para devaluar sitios que abusan de palabras clave o las utilizan en lugares sin sentido logrando que la lectura de las paginas sea difícil. El objetivo del SEO es atraer más usuarios humanos por lo que su contenido debe ser para ellos y no para los robots de Google.

Bien conocido por sus videos de ayuda para webmasters de Google, el ingeniero de software Google Matt Cutts afirma que el nuevo algoritmo utiliza una enorme cantidad de factores antes de la densidad de palabras clave para el posicionamiento SEO de una página.

Lo que deberían hacer los encargados del desarrollo web y los escritores de contenido del sitio web es enfocarse en escribir contenido informativo bien construido que mencione las palabras clave al menos una o dos veces, pero que aun sean de una lectura sencilla y natural. Si el resto del SEO en la pagina es de buena calidad y la campaña es llevada con éxito, la página debería clasificar, aún sin palabras clave que rellenen los párrafos ridículamente.

In the 1990’s – when search engines were beginning to take a huge hold over the internet and marketing strategies – keyword density was an enormous part of whether a website would rank on the first page or the last.  For any keyword targeted on a specific page, SEO experts recommended using it a certain number of times proportional to the amount of words on the page for maximum exposure.  Search engines would pay more attention to sites with a keyword density (the percentage of words on the page which are your targeted keywords) of between 1 and 5 percent, depending on who you ask.

Google’s algorithm, however, is constantly changing – and keyword density is no longer something to really focus on while optimizing your pages.  The main issue is that Google’s bots have become more sensitive to keyword-stuffed content and engineers have changed the algorithm to devalue sites that overuse keywords or put them in awkward places, making reading the page difficult for the user.  The end goal of SEO is to draw more human users to your website, so the content should be more for them than for search engine bots.

Well-known for his Google Webmaster Help videos, Google software engineer Matt Cutts claims that the new algorithm uses an enormous number of factors before keyword density to rank a page.  What web developers and content writers should do is focus on writing informative, well-constructed content that mentions the keywords at least once or twice, but still reads naturally.  If the rest of the SEO on the page is good and the campaign is carried out successfully, the page will rank even without keywords stuffed into each paragraph a ridiculous number of times.

Con los blogs WordPress integrados en la página del sitio web del cliente (si la URL de su blog es www.yourcompanywebsite.com / blog, su blog está integrado) hemos notado un fenómeno interesante: la participación de palabras clave para el posicionamiento SEO. Sin embargo, aunque raramente, ciertas prácticas de palabras clave pueden afectar negativamente a su campaña de SEO.
Cuando utiliza palabras clave específicas, cada una de estas palabras clave deberán estar asociadas con una URL de su sitio web. Es importante utilizar una variedad de direcciones URL para que no todas las palabras clave conduzcan a la misma página.
Cada página asociada con una palabra clave deberá ser luego optimizada para esa palabra clave. Su agencia de diseño paginas web y marketing puede hacer cambios en el contenido de su página, en los títulos, las meta etiquetas y las imágenes para que sea más fácil de leer en Google. Esta página es la única que deber tener optimizaciones para la palabra clave X, para que Google no se confunda.
Porque ¿qué sucede cuando usted optimiza su blog  para la misma palabra clave X? Si su blog está integrado en su sitio, estaría creando otra página en el sitio web optimizado para la misma palabra clave – y ahora las dos páginas estarían “luchando” por la posición  más alta en Google.
Puede ser contraproducente para su campaña incluir las palabras clave específicas en el titulo o en las meta etiquetas de una entrada en su blog. En su lugar, céntrese en escribir un título bien expresado que puede ser en forma de pregunta o anticipando una lista. Piense temas que puedan ser realmente buscados en Google. Para las etiquetas en sus artículos, agregue temas generales que también puedan surgir en Google.

Es importante señalar que esto sólo se aplica a los blogs de WordPress insertados en páginas web. Si su blog tiene un dominio separado (en lugar de www.companyblog.com www.yourcompanywebsite.com / blog), los mensajes se leen de manera diferente en Google. Continúe creando títulos que optimicen el SEO y agregando palabras clave a las etiquetas en sus artículos.

Lea Parte 1 y Parte 2:
Como publicar un artículo en su Blog de WordPresss: Un tutorial SEO paso por paso
Como publicar un artículo en su Blog de WordPress: Parte dos. Mas tips y trucos

Internet users have been warring over the implications of online piracy for years – and the US government is finally arranging a bill that could make a significant dent in the amount of easy access we’ve enjoyed to free movies, music, games and other online materials.  The Stop Online Piracy Act (usually referred to as SOPA) is a bill currently before the US House of Representatives that has been gaining a significant following as well as a significant amount of negative attention from advocates of free file-sharing.

SOPA proposes to fight internet piracy – meaning the transport of copyrighted materials and counterfeit goods – by preventing access to these materials.  This includes barring search engines and other websites from linking to sites providing copyrighted materials for free, making it illegal for websites to advertise with “pirate” sites, and even having internet service providers block access.  While most sites providing loads of free pirated material get around US laws by establishing themselves in foreign countries, lawmakers have been trying for years to get around the loophole these sites have found and prosecute.  While SOPA won’t allow them to prosecute these sites, it gives them an opportunity to punish potential users and scare them off.

The bill has seen the greatest amount of opposition from young internet users and cyber-buffs who spend significant amounts of time viewing movies or downloading music from a number of recognizable websites.  Many say SOPA is just another form of government censorship, and the arguments over an individual’s personal freedom to view material – whether it’s copyrighted or not – versus a business’ right not to have their copyrighted material made available are numerous.  When file-sharing site Megaupload (also known for its video-sharing site Megavideo) was recently shut down by the federal government, some users complained that they had lost dozens of their own personal files that they were storing in accounts that had not been used to traffic stolen material.

If you’ve paid dues on all copyrighted material for your website and your files are being stored in a secure online location like Dropbox or GoogleDocs, you should be safe from SOPA ramifications.  However, if you dedicate a lot of personal time to viewing movies on websites based in foreign countries, you might find yourself paying for DVDs again if SOPA passes.

Luego de hacer su entrada en su blog de WordPress, hay una serie de consejos y trucos que le ayudarán a sacar el máximo provecho  de su blog.

1. Cree una cuenta diferente para cada persona que publica en su blog. No haga que todos los miembros de la oficina publique bajo el administrador. Si su blog es nuevo y el único que publica artículos es usted, vaya a la columna de su izquierda donde dice ¨Users¨y haga click en ¨Add New¨ y hágase una cuenta a usted mismo. Es mas convenientes tener varios usuarios que vayan escribiendo artículos en su blog a que todos los artículos sean publicados bajo el nombre del administrador. Tenga la cuenta del administrador para publicar eventos importantes (y puede hacer de su cuenta un segundo administrador para mantener todos los beneficios)
2. Agregue un plugin SEO. Este plugin le permite manejar el código HTLM que es leído por Google pero no por los usuarios. DE esta manera puede modificar el título a uno que sea más amigo del SEO, agregar una descripción META (lo que se muestra por debajo del título cuando se hace una búsqueda en Google) y agregar palabras claves. Esto otorga gran beneficio para el posicionamiento SEO. Su agencia de marketing puede ayudarlo si no sabe cómo usar el plugin.

Para más información lea: Como publicar un artículo en su Blog de WordPress. Un tutorial SEO paso por paso

With WordPress blogs embedded in a client’s website (if the URL of your blog is www.yourcompanywebsite.com/blog, then your blog is embedded), our internet marketing agency has noticed an interesting phenomenon involving SEO keywords.  Certain keyword practices can – however infrequently – negatively affect your SEO campaign.

When you target specific keywords, each of those keywords will be associated with a URL on your website.  It’s important to use a variety of URLs so that not all of your keywords lead back to one page.  Each page targeted with a keyword will then be optimized for that keyword – your internet marketing agency will make changes to the content, titles, meta tags and images to make it more readable in Google.  This page is the only one that should have optimizations for keyword X so that Google doesn’t get confused.

But what happens when you make a blog post optimized for keyword X?  If your blog is embedded into your site, you’ve just created another page on the website optimized for the same keyword – and now the two pages might “fight” for the higher spot in Google.  It can be counteractive to your campaign to include the keywords being targeted in the title or post tags of the blog post.  Instead, focus on writing an engaging title phrased as a question or a top ten list.  Think about subjects that may actually be searched in Google.  For post tags, add general subjects that also might come up in Google.

It’s important to note that this applies ONLY to embedded WordPress blogs.  If your blog has a separate domain (www.companyblog.com rather than www.yourcompanywebsite.com/blog), then the posts are read differently in Google.  Keep making SEO-friendly titles and adding the keywords as the post tags.

Read parts 1 and 2:
How to Make a Blog Post in WordPress:  A Step-by-Step SEO Tutorial
How to Make a Blog Post in WordPress Part 2:  Two More Tips and Tricks

After making your blog post in WordPress, there are a number of tips and tricks that will help get the most out of your blogging efforts.

1. Create a separate user account for each person posting – don’t have the whole office post with the admin account.  If your blog is brand new and the only account that exists is the admin account, go to “Users” in the left column and click “Add New” to create a user account for yourself.  It’s better to have a number of users with distinct identities posting on the blog rather than have every staff member use the admin account.  Save the admin account for important administrative tasks (and you can make your personal account a “secondary administrator” to maintain all the benefits).
2. Add an SEO plugin.  This plugin allows you to manipulate the part of the HTML code on the page that’s read by Google, but not visible to human users.  You can change the title to something more search-engine friendly, add a meta description (what shows up underneath the title of the page on the Google search results pages), and add in your keywords as meta keywords.  This provides significant SEO benefit.  Your internet marketing agency can help you if you’re not sure how to add this plugin.

Read How to Make a Blog Post in WordPress:  A Step-by-Step SEO Tutorial.