The Growing Holiday Cyber Security Threat

By Hector Cisneros

Every year since the invention of malware, cyber-attacks have escalated. This is especially true during the holiday season. Every October, the U.S. government commemorates National Cyber Security Awareness Month, guided by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the National Cyber Security Alliance. My question is why don’t they declare the whole fourth quarter National Cyber Security Awareness Season instead. During the holidays, cybercriminals are all too aware of how people are distracted by their holiday plans. People become more careless online, especially on social media and this allows cybercriminals to take advantage of them. To make things worse, it’s extremely easy for anyone to acquire hacking and ransomware tools that are easy to deploy, without being a cybercriminal mastermind. In this episode of Working the Web to Win, we will explore the latest cyber holiday threats and provide our readers with tips, tools, and resources to counter these holiday Cyber-Grinches. So, put on your holiday cap to learn about what happens as the season of thieving nears.

Wearables 4.0 - The Activity Trackers Strikes Back

The Next Generation of Activity, Health Trackers, and Smartwatches.

By Hector Cisneros

Apple Watch Courtesy of Flickr

Health Trackers and Smart Watches are everywhere. You can walk into a room without noticing these items inhabiting the arms of thousands of people across the fruited plain.  It has been about five years since these items were introduced to the public and the fad has turned into a trend that still seems unstoppable. In fact, it appears these devices are replacing regular watches as the de facto timepiece. This trend will grow as long as computing power grows, size shrinks, devices improve, and the prices drop. It seems that there is no end in sight to the number of people adopting activity trackers and smartwatches. This is especially true for health conscious and athletic individuals. In this episode of Working the Web to Win, we will delve into the latest and greatest activity/health trackers and smartwatches. There is considerable overlap between many of these devices, and this article will endeavor to help you understand the differences. So, roll up your sleeves Dick Tracy and take a gander at your wrists as we take a close look at the latest and greatest Smart Watches and Activity Trackers.

Make Black Friday Your Best Friday

Courtesy of Pixabay

How to Make Sure Black Friday Doesn’t Make You See Red

By Hector Cisneros

For more than a century, Americans have been engaged in what has now become a time-honored tradition where holiday shopping starts right after Thanksgiving. Today that event is called Black Friday. If you’re a retailer, my question for you is this; Is Black Friday your Best sales day or is Black Friday making you see red?  Are you able to generate sufficient local business versus the online competition? Or, are you seeing dwindling sales? If sales are dwindling, then it's time to take advantage of the internet to garner new sales and new customers! In this episode of Working the Web to Win we will explore Black Friday Marketing Tips to help local retailers compete with the online retail giants.

Are Internet Algorithms giving Mary Shelley a run for her Frankenstein Monster?

By Hector Cisneros

Courtesy of Flickr

It’s almost the 200^th anniversary of the classic horror story Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. So, what’s this got to do with marketing? Lately, there have been a slew of news stories about how advertising and newsfeeds have gone awry doing everything from favoring a political candidate, and allowing hostile foreign governments to influence elections, to allowing advertisers to target hate speech or dissidents without the search and social media giants knowing what’s going on! In this episode of Working the Web to Win, we will take a close look at the Frankenstein results being produced by search and ad algorithms now being used by the internet giants. In fact, we will see how these scary results foreshadow the future of Artificial Intelligence and its uses in the 21^st century.

Free Cool Google Tools to Raise Your Ranking

By Hector Cisneros

Courtesy of Pixabay

If you ask about the cost of doing SEO work, most businesses will tell you that outsourcing your SEO work is costly and time-consuming. You don’t normally hear people say, “yeah, it’s easy to do, and I use these free tools.”  Well, what if I told you Google provides a number of software tools to improve visitor experience, make your website convert better and raise your search engine ranking. Would you use them? In this episode of Working the Web to Win we will highlight and explore more than a dozen online software tools. Google provides these tools free for any would-be internet marketers. So, fire up another browser tab and get your mouse ready to click on some cool tools as we explore Google’s free SEO tools and apps to raise your ranking.