Google Apps receives “ISO 27001″

Google Apps for Business’s market share is shown to be growing.  Recently the service earned what is called the “ISO 27001 certification”. This certification is one of the most widely recognized, internationally accepted standards for security.

Gartner Report:  Google Upsetting Microsoft’s Cloud-Office System Ambitions
Gartner released a new report which shows Google rapidly gaining market share from Microsoft. “Google Apps is taking more business away from Microsoft than we expected, raising its stature as an enterprise provider.” In fact, one-third to one-half of new, paid-for, cloud-based office system seats are won by Google.

How is Google Apps different from a free Gmail account?

Google Apps for Business is a suite of online applications tailored to a specific business.  Branding options are available and sharing options within a single company are also highlighted.  This suite of web services aims to cover all the services required for a business to preform common tasks.  The suite includes Google Mail™, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Video.

You have probably already used many of these services in the past, using a regular Gmail or “Google” account.  Inside of Google Apps for Business, Google has enhanced them with these critical differences:

#1 Google Apps is for YOUR business

When you sign up, all services are directly tied to you own business domain name. So, instead of having to log in with your regular Gmail account, you are able to create custom accounts for everyone in your organization, all directly tied to your domain.  Each user will get an official user name such as username@companyname.com. In order to create these user account, there is an admin control panel that is built into the back end of Google Apps for your business.  Shore Web Tech LLC offers to take on this responsibility if you feel overwhelmed, or simply don’t have the time to manage the entire apps dashboard yourself.

#2 Specific Business Features that You Need

Google is adding separate, enhanced features specifically to the Google Apps for Business product. In comparison to the regular Google services, that are free to use, Google has added the following features to this Business version:

• Through “improved Access Controls”, you are in control of how information is shared both internally, and also outside of your company domain.   This can relate to Google Calendar for example, you can share your calendar with the entire company, or chose to share it with select users outside your company, or make it accessible publicly.
• Gmail: Rest assured that you may never have to delete your business email, ever.  Google Apps for Business users are given a whopping 25GB of storage space, compared to the 10GB given to free account holders.  You also have access to custom email lists and many other typical business features.
• Google Sites: This can serve as a company intranet, enabling you to share documentation and resources with the company.  Google sites is also provides you with the right storage quotas that your business requires.
• Google Calendar: Aside from the other great features that all Google Calendar users receive, the business version enables conference room and resource sharing, allowing you, and others, to view and schedule office reservations on equipment and common meeting areas.
• These are just a few ideas of how to use the enhanced Business apps.  In the end, it is only limited your imagination.  Many others have tailored Google Apps for Business to suite their needs in very creative ways.

Pinterest is a one of the fastest growing social media sites out there to date breaking the 10 million unique visitors mark in a little less than a year as invitation only email requests. Pinterest has become the number one site I hear of daily. It caters to all types of interests from DIYers to books and architecture. The one common theme seems to be “inspiration” and sharing of inspiration.  The layout of the site provides a common board of posts viewable by all users, once you are invited and login you are provided the ability to follow specific users and given your own personalized page to customize your own boards of your specific interests. When you find a “pin” or photo that you like you can either like the post, comment, or pin it to one of your own boards. Once you pin to a boa
rd your followers will be able to see your actions. Pinterest has made several ways to pin to your board, by pinning from a fellow pinterest post, by uploading from your computer, or by pinning from another website.

The Layout Just Works

This is where pinterest separates itself from other social media sites. The main focus of the site is graphics with very little text. When a user finds a post of interest they can click on the photo to follow the origin of the original photo in a new tab. So for example an amazing Culinary dish that you just need to try, click on the photo and it brings you to the site with the full recipe.  With computer evolution GUI (Graphic User Interface) has made computing easier for a wide range of people. For instance instead of the old DOS commands needed to run your computer Windows formed icons to help ease the user into a more comfortable way of navigating. My take on Pinterest is its ability to take its users through more quality material faster. There is also a “feel” to the quality of the pins.  The photos even though from many different users tend to have a clean and professional look.

Logging in is a Breeze

One of the best features I have found is the login using your facebook or twitter login. Instead of having to remember a new login and password (as if we don’t have a million already) you have the option to login using your already existing login to your Facebook or Twitter accounts. This is also a way to help spread the word about the great new site that you just can’t stop using due to the fact that it can display on your facebook news ticker of your pinterest activity.

Pinterest has developed from years of word of mouth inspiration to an astatically pleasing way to spread inspiration to a wide variety of users. I can’t tell you how my own house has changed just from OMG moments of inspiration found through the site.

We are proud to be a member of the Google Engage program since May 5th of 2011.  This exclusive new program at Google gives us access to better training and support for Google AdWords, as well as $100 advertising coupons that we can distribute as we see fit.

On August 4th, we received a package in the mail courtesy of the Google Engage program.  It was a pleasant surprise to open the box and find 20 additional “Golden Tickets” (AdWords Vouchers) to give our clients.  We also received a Google branded hat, and a Google USB stick with some handy files saved on it.  It was also a nice touch for Google to customize the Golden Tickets with message stating “A gift from RJ Ponzio”…  I would just like to say Thank You Google!

If you would like us to help set you up with Google AdWords, or if you need help optimizing your existing account, feel free to contact us any time, day or night!  We are very excited to be a part of this new program.

Google and Keller Fay collaborated to study the effects of the Internet and Internet enabled devices on word of mouth conversations about brands.

There are 2.4 billion conversations about brands every day. What role do search and the Internet play? Google paired up with Keller Fay group to find out:

• The Internet is both the leading spark of WOM conversations and the #1 resource utilized to take action after conversation. Search impacts more than 15% of all Word of Mouth conversations
• Google is the #1 spark of Word of Mouth conversations and the #1 place people turn to after conversations for more information
• Google directly informs 146 million brand conversations a day
• Word of mouth impressions generated by search are 25% more credible and 17% more likely to lead to purchase than those generated by online social media

A large majority of the websites we develop are based on the amazingly powerful WordPress platform.  If you knew what we know from years of  WordPress development and customization, being on any other platform these days just doesn’t make any sense.  Simply put, WordPress is the best website platform and CMS out there, period.  Oh, did we mention it’s FREE?

Why WordPress?

Search Engine Friendly – WordPress out of the box covers all the basics that search engines like Google are looking for in SEO.  Although, really good quality SEO requires additional work on page content, best practices, and social media efforts.

Easy to Migrate – It’s both easy to import your old content into WordPress and export your new content out of WordPress with the handy import/export tool.  Say goodbye to the days of being held hostage by a website company that you spend years and years putting content into and then can never get anything out of if you ever want to leave.

Easy to Edit – Editing website pages on the WordPress CMS is just as simple as editing a Word document.  Anyone with basic word processing experience will have no problem keeping your pages up to date.  Easily add Bold, Italics, Underline, Bullet Points, left/center/right align, etc…   It’s even easy to add video or photos to your pages too!

Powerful & Flexible – It is complete myth that WordPress is “just for blogs”. In the reality of today’s technology, WordPress is now a fully featured CMS (Content Management System) capable of handling pretty much anything that you can throw at it.  It handles your average website layout just as well as a blog style website.  You just have a bonus that, if you ever want a blog integrated into your existing website, all the features are right there waiting for you.

Google AdWords is a Pay-Per-Click advertising service.  AdWords shows ads to people in the Google search results that are relevant to what they are searching. The best part of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is that you are only charged when people actually click on your ads.

You get to set the price you pay for the clicks too! If you only want to spend ten cents each time somebody clicks on your ad, you can…  Just don’t expect that much exposure if you set that low of a bid. Your ad’s position is based on a bidding system; the higher the bid, the higher your ad places on the right side of the search results. If your ad places in a top position consistently, Google will start placing your ad in the coveted top section, ABOVE the normal “organic” search results. View the example here to notice where the advertisements are located on a Google search page.

PPC and Setting the maximum bid

It is true that you can set what ever price you want for your ads, you can even set a cost limit per day across all of your ads and their keywords. What you are actually bidding on are “keywords” that you imagine a person interested in your website will search for. You can set a max bid for as many keywords as you like. Here is an example of how this works…

Let’s say three companies place a bid on the same keyword, they are company “A”, “B”, and “C”. Who ever has the highest maximum bid is the one that goes at the top of the ad column on the right side of the search results and then the others will follow below it.

The actual cost for everyone will depend on their placement, the low bidder pays their max bid, the next bidder up will pay $.01 (one penny) more, the next highest bidder will pay an additional $.01 (one penny) more also.

Now lets say that the max bid for “A” was 20 cents per click, “B” was 10 cents per click and “C” was 30 cents per click. The cost to each website advertiser would be the following if a person clicked their ad:

“B” was the lowest bid, they must pay their max bid of 10 cents

“A” was the next highest bid at 20 cents per click, they pay a total of 11 cents (one penny more than “B”)

“C” was the next highest bid at 30 cents per click, they pay a total of 12 cents (one penny more than “A”)

Now, with only three people in the bidding process, the costs can be very low. Well, as long as all the max bids are low that is. The prices really start to skyrocket when there are many bidders on the same keywords and everyone is trying to out bid each other. Sure you are only paying the lowest max bid plus one penny for each placement above them.. but if all the bids are going high to out bid each other then the low max bid in turn will be going up along with them.

Then Came the Quality Score…

Obviously the above example is very basic to say the least. But even though I wrote it back in 2007, the theory remains the same.  Although one more variable that determines your ad’s rank and also your monthly cost is the Quality Score.  Basically speaking, Google applies a “quality” rating to all keywords in your account, your keywords are awarded a higher Quality Score (QS) when they prove to have a good Click Through Rate (CTR). The opposite is also true when your keywords have a very low CTR and therefore will get a very low value QS.

Stop Throwing Money Down The Drain!

Your Quality Score has a direct effect on the amount you pay when a person clicks your ad.  If your keyword has a high Quality Score, then your ad will rank higher on the page than others who are paying the same amount per click.  In essence, you are rewarded for using relevant keywords, optimized ad text, and landing pages that have a good CTR.

Google’s formula for Quality Score  —>  (Quality Score) x (Max CPC) = (Ad Rank)

Example of Ad Rank with Quality Score: 

You bid on a specific keyword and set a max bid of $1 and lets say you have a Quality Score of 7 out of a possible 10
1 x 7 = 7, So you have an Ad Rank of “7″

Now, your competitor bids on the same exact keyword, but they set a max bid of $2 and we’ll say that they have a Quality Score of 3 out of 10
2 x 3 = 6, So your competitor has an Ad Rank of “6″

In this example, YOUR AD will rank HIGHER in the results even though you will PAY LESS for the clicks!  It’s a great system for anyone who is able to create high quality Ad Text and Landing Pages that are relevant.

So, what are you waiting for?   Contact Us Now & Get Optimized for Quality Score!