Tag: Digital Marketing Costa Rica

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Costa Rica Marketing – SEO, Digital Marketing Experts at affordable prices

Costa Rica Marketing
Costa Rica Marketing

Costa Rica marketing services by Roger Acuna- the only certified inbound marketing educator in Central America.

Services include SEO and custom tailored inbound marketing strategies. As lead procurement specialists, we pride ourselves in providing only top-quality services to our clients across the globe. Previous and current influential clients include Hospital Metropolitano, Sportsbook.com, Hacienda Pinilla, ArmoTours, HP, Microsoft Gold Partners, CITI Bank and many more corporate titans. Also we offer services with respect to investigative background checks on individuals and corporations alike – if there’s anything to be found…we’ll find it for you!

As our manager Roger Acuna says… “When it gets tough and complicated, you need to innovate with marketing intelligence.”

When it comes to lead acquisition – why leave it to chance? Almost on a daily basis I have to explain to my prospective clients the importance of distinguishing between garbage traffic and quality conditioned traffic.

Costa Rica Marketing

So yeah…it’s been quite awhile since my last post. What can I say? I’ve been a very busy bee. The universe has been very generous to me lately and for that I have all the appreciate one can imagine.

I thought to myself…personally I get my engines fired up whenever I watch/read content on the internet about the success stories of others – especially when it involves an element of marketing and how I can improve.

Do you know who I am? Well do you? I’m Rick James bitch! (refer to video below) Trouble is, when it comes to the online world you’re nothing – at least not without a good inbound marketing campaign.

The future of marketing demands that our brands play a role in culture. We need to be externally focused, connected to the people and organisations that influence culture, with a deep understanding of what is happening in the world and what consumers are interested in. We must think culture back rather than brand forwards.
The role of the PR&I manager is to create an influencer network identifying critical target advocates in each market and identifying how each brand of our portfolio will reach and influence those groups during the year and then execute this plan.

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Blog Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing

Roger Acuna: Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing Consultant

Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing
Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing

Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing

The worldwide revolution that the internet has brought to the general sales market has initiated an era of marketing information in which accessibility and credibility walk hand in hand, which turns out not to be different here in Costa Rica. Those companies or its products that cannot be easily found over the internet (which translates into not being highly ranked on internet search engines) are left behind in the sales marketing arena. The importance of each company or product having not only an informative website that appeals to the customers, but also one that is highly ranked as credible and informative on search engines, has currently become crucial in attaining better marketing results.

Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing
Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing

Not only on the growing internet market in Costa Rica, but also on the global market. Search Engine Marketing nowadays  has evolved to a discipline that every successful web based company has incorporated in its marketing strategy.

Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing

At Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing we put all of our energies in delivering the best Search Engine Marketing (SEM) service. Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing offers you a personalized, unique, complete, and thoroughly professional Search Engine Marketing service for Costa Rica based enterprises with national or global aspirations. We understand your  target market and we know how to reach it; thus allowing us to deliver to you the best optimization of your website here in Costa Rica and the rest of the world. In return Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing enables you to increase your recognition as a useful and high ranking website on major internet search engines used daily by the market that you are trying to reach.

Contact Costa Rica Search Engine Marketing, we will be more than happy to discuss with you – without any obligation – the opportunities you have to optimize the marketing of your website. We guarantee that you will be pleased with the great results that we can deliver for your website.

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Blog SEO Costa Rica SEO tips

How to Maximize Your Reach Using Google’s Knowledge Graph

The evolution of Google’s search engine result pages (SERPs) over the past few years has lowered the emphasis on achieving top organic rankings and opened up tremendous opportunities.

One of the most significant updates, the Knowledge Graph, has made discoverability even easier. To put it simply, both producer and consumer can benefit from its existence.

In this post, we are going to take a closer look at exactly what the Knowledge Graph is, then move on to explain how you can best influence it to drive more visitors to your website.

Maximize Your Reach on Google’s Knowledge Graph | SEJ

Let’s start by setting the scene.

What the Knowledge Graph is and Why it Exists

Google has been rolling out updates over the past few years that intend to infer what people are trying to find when they search for something, rather than simply taking a literal view of the keywords they use.

This evolution of piecing together context and other semantic data has brought about entity-based search, which helps connecting different pieces of information together in one helpful section for searchers.

The Knowledge Graph has become an essential way for marketers to leverage search engines for increased visibility and click-through rates, due to the combination of hyper-relevant information, sheer size, diversity of media types, and primary location on SERPs.

Some publishers are concerned with the growing influence of immediate answers appearing, which potentially removes the need to visit their website for that information. However, Google recently included a publisher URL to the Knowledge Graph, which can help alleviate some of those concerns.

Now let’s explore what the Knowledge Graph looks like in the wild.

Common Knowledge Graph Types and Examples

Depending on the search performed, your brand stands a good chance of grabbing the extra detail contained within the Knowledge Graph to influence where and how a searcher interacts with the results they’re seeing.

Let’s take a look at some of the most popular search query examples to see what changes and updates the Knowledge Graph provides, after which we’ll examine how companies, influential people, local businesses, movies, TV shows, and even healthcare can capitalize on these new developments in a variety of ways.

Companies

Maximize Your Reach on Google’s Knowledge Graph | SEJ

The Knowledge Graph provides large companies with the opportunity to immediately answer a basic questions for each user.

For example, when doing a “branded” search for Staples (above), you can see prominent sitelinks under the first organic position, helping people immediately dive deeper into product categories. This is extremely useful for consumers with a specific product in mind, while also benefiting Staples by removing friction (or extra steps) to finding and purchasing a product.

In addition, the Knowledge Graph results provide a few easy-to-use resources like their customer service number, stock price information, and social profiles. Having this aggregated data in one place provides a quick jumping off point for people to learn more and further engage with the company.

Influential People

Maximize Your Reach on Google’s Knowledge Graph | SEJ

The Knowledge Graph also helps popularize influential people-as-brands. A simple “Gary Vaynerchuk” query reveals instant information like his best-selling books, the organization he’s affiliated with, and other pop-culture appearances.

The SERP now becomes one big advertisement for all things Vaynerchuk, providing you the ability to control (or at least influence) large sections of how you want someone to be perceived, and what they’re associated with.

Local Businesses

Maximize Your Reach on Google’s Knowledge Graph | SEJ

Local businesses might benefit the most from the extra Knowledge Graph “real estate” by displaying exactly what people need in customer reviews, daily hours, and popular times.

You can also see Zagat’s influence extend into these local results, bringing Yelp-like features directly to a searcher’s fingertips with minimal effort (and negating the need to visit Yelp). That’s good news and bad news depending on where you’re investing time and money, because (as we’ll discuss later) Google+ integration is key to appearing in the Knowledge Graph.

Movies, TV Shows, and Books

Maximize Your Reach on Google’s Knowledge Graph | SEJ

Let’s say you’re considering seeing a new movie like The Martian. With the Knowledge Graph in action, there’s no need to leave the original SERP – you’re now getting local showtime listings, editorial reviews from credible third-party sources like Variety and Empire (this is currently only available for movies, but the functionality is expanding into TV shows and books later this year.

Publishers can also utilize this space to show off their artwork to visually influence SERP visibility and click-through-rates.

Health Information

Maximize Your Reach on Google’s Knowledge Graph | SEJ

The Knowledge Graph also helps those with common health conditions (or those who like to play doctor) by including important health information.

Now searchers can get the ‘cliff notes’ version of a health issue with diagnosis, symptoms, and treatments from reputable sources like the Mayo Clinic in just a click.

How to Get to the Knowledge Graph

Unfortunately, you currently can’t add information into the Knowledge Graph directly, but you can influence what shows up by tapping into a few key sources that Google pulls from.

Let’s start by examining the most popular sources, then move on to discuss how you can begin to optimize them and increase your influence over important SERPs.

Knowledge Graph Sources

There are three primary sources of information that Google officially uses to populate the Knowledge Graph: Wikidata.org (Previously Freebase.com), Wikipedia, and the CIA World Factbook.

Beyond these sources, Tony Edward recently mentioned two more sources used: sites leveraging Schema Markup, and content from “high authority sources”.

Let’s take a look at the above-mentioned sources in more detail:

  1. Wikidata.org (Previously Freebase.com): This free database contains over 15,000,000 data points. At the end of last year, Google announced it was shutting down Freebase and transferring its information over to Wikidata. Data can be manually entered into Wikidata (Wikipedia’s sister site), or sent directly through an API.
  2. Wikipedia: Anyone can enter information into Wikipedia; the trick is doing so without it being flagged and removed almost immediately. Anything appearing overly commercial or spammy without “reliable published sources” is usually removed immediately. Therefore, only proceed if you can contribute an unbiased entry that won’t be flagged for removal.
  3. CIA World Factbook: A one-stop shop for “information on the history, people, government, economy, energy, geography, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 267 world entities”. There is no way to manually submit your information into the Factbook, but it remains a highly credible and influential source of information for the Knowledge Graph.
  4. Sites Leveraging Schema Markup: Implementing “schema markup” on your website helps search engines better understand what they’re looking at. Applying these tags across your site (just like any metadata) help enable “rich snippets”, which can improve SERP visibility and click-through-rates while also powering Knowledge Graph results. Details on the specific types of markup to use will be provided below.
  5. Content from High Authority Sources: Information from websites with high value or “authority” has been given more credibility by Google. The search giant measures authority through a variety of methods, including (but not limited to) the age of the domain, number of relevant and informative pages on the site, number of quality links, and diversity of those links. The goal for publishers is to develop their own authority on specific topics, or at the very least get press mentions and referrals from other high authority sources that are topically relevant.

How to Influence the Knowledge Graph (In 5 Steps)

Now that you know which sources Google pulls information from, let’s discuss what you can do to maximize the odds of getting information into the Knowledge Graph (and thus increase the visibility of your brand).

1. Leverage Structured Data through Schema.org Markup

There are a few ways you can leverage Schema.org markup, each of which depend on your objectives, website, and types of searches you’d like to show up on (two of the most popular being organization and person). Google provides a summary of crucial markup types for customizing one’s Knowledge Graph, including logos, company contact numbers and social profile links.

However, there are others for local businesses, reviews, health and more. After implementing, you can use Google’s Structured Data testing tool to ensure your Schema markup is valid.

2. Get Listed at Wikidata.org and Wikipedia

These influential sources are open to anyone, but they have strict guidelines for what they’re looking for, and any unbiased listing will be removed immediately.

An old (but still relevant) article from the Content Marketing Institute provides a few great tips, including to double-check your verifiable third-party source data, and try to get a few different opinions or pass-throughs from various people to eliminate any unintentional bias or obvious slant.

3. Local Businesses: Optimize Google Maps and Your Google+ Business Page

If you have a local bricks-and-mortar location, your local presence on Google My Business is the first place to start.

It’s a combination of Google’s old Google Places for Business listing and Maps integration as well as your Google+ Business page. Make sure all the little details (like business hours) are completely filled out and accurate. Then make sure you’re actually using your page, with acquiring new reviews and local citations or backlinks as some of the most important ways to help show up on the new competitive “local three pack.”

4. Conduct Keyword Research

Google is introducing critic reviews as a way to provide additional third-party credibility into search results, bringing publishers a tremendous opportunity.

Trusted websites can get exposure in the Knowledge Graph in the review section, and the recently-shared The New York Times case study is a good example. Foundation of the strategy would be keyword research.

Specifically, publishers can research long-tail keywords with tools like Rank Tracker, then differentiate between evergreen topics they’d like to consistently “own” and trendy topics that they might be able to capitalize on due to low competition.

5. Utilize YouTube

There’s already evidence of Google pulling artist, musicians, and song-related information from YouTube into their Knowledge Graph.

This trend, in addition to their extremely large user base and tight integration with other Google products, makes YouTube a safe bet for publishers that excel with multimedia content.

Conclusion

The SERP layout changes over the past few years aren’t simple vanity, but a move to provide better answers or results through more comprehensive and contextually relevant data.

Instead of being stuck with basic text links and possibly a few sitelinks with little-to-no control over what showed up, now you have carousels, updated local packs, direct answers and other engaging Knowledge Graphs that immediately catch a searcher’s eye – ultimately influencing how and where they’re interacting.

The result of this is the diminishment of number one spot in the SERPs as the Holy Grail.

The broad trend of entity-based search provides companies, brands, and publishers with an integrated method to capitalize on their core strengths of branding, communications and creative.

All of this brings us to a clear conclusion: the Knowledge Graph isn’t a threat – it’s an opportunity.

Now it’s over to you. Have you seen benefits from the new SERP layouts, or is Google overstepping their boundaries? Please share your comments and feedback below!

Maximize Your Reach on Google’s Knowledge Graph | SEJ

By: Aleh Barysevich SEO Tips.

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Blog SEO Costa Rica SEO tips

Basic URL Redirection Types

SEO redirects

Basic URL Redirection Types

URL Forwarding (sometimes known as URL Redirection) is a technique which can be used to redirect a domain to another URL which is either too long or too hard to remember for a web user. The URL redirections types are represented by a numeric code say:301,302,303,410. These numbers refer to the HTTP Status Code returned by the server for a given URL.

Basic URL Redirection Types:
There are 4 types of URL Redirections:

  1. Permanent redirection: 301 –  A 301 redirect tells the search engine that the page has moved permanently to the new URL. The Search engines should change their index to use the new URL. When you redirect your pages, you should always use a 301 http server redirect. This tells the search engines that the redirect is permanent and that they should change their index to use the new URL. Spammers use other types of redirects (HTTP 302 redirects and meta refresh), so they are not a good idea to use.
  2. Temporary redirection: 302 – A 302 redirect tells the search engine that the move is only temporary, and you may decide to show content at the original location in the future without a redirect. The search engine should remove this URL from the index. Many spammers use 302 redirects to fool the search engines. HTTP 302 redirects are for temporary redirects. The only time you should use them is for redirecting ugly URLs to more user-friendly ones. This tells the search engine that the ugly URL should not be removed from the index, because the user-friendly URL is just to make the URL palatable. Keep in mind that many spammers use 302 redirects to fool search engines. So be judicious in your use of them.
  3. Redirection: 303 – In contrast to the 301 and 302 redirects, the 303 redirect is not used for making a substitute reference for the originally requested URL. This status code is used for the redirection of web applications to a new URL, particularly after an http post has been performed. This response indicates that the correct response can be found under a different URL and should be retrieved using a GET method. The specified URL is not a substitute reference for the original resource.
  4. Gone status code: 410 – It indicates that the page has been removed and the URL is permanently unavailable. The 410 error also indicates that the Web server has no forwarding address for the URL, so can provide no redirection to the new Web server. This condition should generally be considered permanent. If the Web server does not know, or has no way of knowing, whether or not the condition is permanent, the status code 404-Not Found should be used instead.
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Blog SEO Costa Rica SEO Strategies

SEO Tips: Clicks Are People: 3 Tactics for Creating More Human-Centered Marketing

Every marketer has goals, whether for their latest campaign or for the quarter.

“Get me 30x the clicks/impressions/conversions!” is a phrase I’m betting a lot of you have heard from a dictator director of some kind, and the struggle is real when you want to deliver.

But when you’re heads down trying to score more clicks or conversions, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture:

That a real person is behind every click, sign up, social share and conversion.

Tactics For Creating More Human-Centered Marketing | SEJ

We often forget about the people who are interacting with our pages, our products, our brand. If you’re feeling any frustration at all with the numbers you’re seeing in your analytics, it could be because you’re focusing too much on the medium (sign-ups on your landing page form) rather than thepeople actually filling out that form.

When I attended MozCon several weeks ago, this theme kept cropping up in the presentations: we have to go back to basics a bit to create better marketing experiences for the consumer, because that’s what affects our bottom line.

The more you get to know your audience and create content targeted specifically at them, the more you’ll see your metrics rise as a result.

As speaker Wil Reynolds put it:

Clicks are people.

To help us re-imagine our relationship with our users and create better marketing experiences for them, three tactics from the MozCon presentations stood out for me: developing a solid brand strategy, optimizing for search, and personalization.

What do each of those entail? Let’s dig in.

1. Develop a Brand Strategy to Guide Your Campaigns

CEO of Digital Marketing Agency Kick Point Dana DiTomaso said it best:

Good marketing just feels right.

In other words, good marketing is cohesive, relatable, and prompts people to make decisions without having to think too hard about it.

But how can marketers weave this sort of effortlessness into each and every marketing campaign they run?

According to Dana, a solid brand strategy goes a long way.

As she explained, a brand strategy is the culmination of a brand’s core values, art direction, and customer personas outlined in one central document — a document that acts as a company’s moral compass.

This strategy should guide and affect all efforts of the business and, in particular, a brand’s marketing efforts.

Dana explained you have to go beyond logos, brand colors, and email headers. You have to think of your brand as a person, and have conversations with everyone in your organization (not just the marketers) about what kind of characteristics this person has.

The Three Key Ingredients of a Brand Marketing Strategy

There are three things Dana emphasized when building this kind of brand strategy for your business:

  1. Keep it as simple as possible
  2. Keep it consistent across all channels (online and offline)
  3. Make it a living, breathing document that is a true expression of your company (and reflects your company’s core values)

With your new brand strategy to guide you, you’re sure to create more cohesive, enchanting marketing for your prospects – the people behind every click.

2. Optimize for Search Enginesand People

In his presentation, Wil Reynolds pointed out that focusing on the overarching experience you provide to your prospects has had an added bonus: when you’re concerned with people, their decision-making processes and what makes them tick, you’re mastering a skill set that can’t be disrupted.

New Google algorithms are constantly being released, and people are always dreaming up new methods for acquiring traffic — these things can and will change constantly. What won’t change is that people are behind every click that contributes to your company’s bottom line.

As Wil explained, when you understand who your audience is, what they want — and most importantly — why they convert, you have a highly valuable tool that can’t be disrupted.

And no Google algorithm update can change that.

As the Wizard of Moz himself Rand Fishkin explained, at the end of the day it’s all about balance. Whether we’re creating content, web pages or running a marketing campaign, we need to optimize for search engines and people.

He explained this in terms of the “two algorithm world”:

  1. Algorithm 1: Google’s input
  2. Algorithm 2: Subset of humanity that interacts with your content

Focus on the algorithm input too closely, and you’re creating bad marketing experiences for people. Focus too closely on the experience you’re providing people, and they won’t be able to find you in Google to begin with.

Finding the balance between algorithm input and human input is no easy feat, but if you can find that sweet spot, you’ll be flying high.

3. Segment and Personalize Your Content

Every piece of content you put online needs to be directed at someone. I’m talking someone specific. So specific that you should be able to picture that person’s face.

Many of the MozCon presentations placed huge emphasis on creating relevant, timely, personalized content. Content Strategist Kristina Halvorson had one of the best quotes on this topic when she said:

If your content is for everybody, then it really is for nobody.

Deep, huh? But she’s totally right.

Content for the sake of content just piles up and eventually dies on the vine. Kristina (and many others) called for a well-rounded content strategy that takes into account both the company’s goals and those of the audience — or a multitude of audiences.

Cara Harshman, Content Marketing Manager at Optimizely, agreed with Kristina’s point:

The one-size-fits-all web is dead…and lazy.

She proposed a three-tiered framework for personalizing content, to help you guide your efforts and make sure that you’re delivering engaging contentto real individuals who actually exist:

Cara’s framework for personalization involved three things:

  1. Who to target: Slice your audience into unique segments. We have so much data that we can pinpoint even the most particular of people. Look at contextual (where are they coming from?), demographic (things you innately know to be true about your audience) and behavioral (interactions those people have had with your product/site) data to pick out a well-rounded segment of people to talk to.
  2. What to show them: What are you showing the unique person that you’re targeting? Will they find it relevant to their interests? Are you sure? Put extra effort into researching exactly who your segment of people are and provide a delightful marketing experience for them.
  3. How to prioritize: How do you decide where to start? It comes down to three major things: potential business impact, technical effort to execute and the requirements needed to sustain it. Remember not to slice your audience too thin or else personalizing for lots of really small audiences will take way more effort than it’s worth.

To circle back for a second, the best way to be personal (without being creepy) is to stay true to your company’s brand strategy and core values. If your marketing stays true to what you stand for, your marketing will feel good — and this creates marketing experiences customers can get behind.

You can dive deeper into Cara’s presentation (and that of others) by checking out the comprehensive notes that Unbounce took at MozCon.

Now Go Forth and Spread Good Marketing

There are people behind every single marketing action you take. You are not affecting the numbers, you’re affecting users who are interacting with your product and your brand. What do you want them to know? What makes them tick? What do they need from you in order to take action?

None of those questions can be answered without a little hard work and risk taking, but it’s all in the name of creating better marketing experiences.

So disrupt your current workflow and start the conversation about what you stand for and who you’re producing content for.

Your marketing will thank you.

By Chelsea Scholz SEO Tips.

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Blog SEO Costa Rica SEO Strategies SEO tips

Facebook Introduces Snapchat-Like Enhancements to Mobile Profiles

It’s possible that someone on the Facebook design team is a Snapchatter, because some of the profile enhancements announced today are straight out of Snapchat’s playbook.

The three main enhancements announced today provide further opportunities for people to express themselves on the world’s largest social network.

Profile Videos
With the first of the new features, you can add some action to your profile photos with Snapcode Selfies animated GIFs. Facebook sidesteps the Snapchat comparison by calling this an “obvious evolution” of profile photos.

Using Facebook’s profile videos you can film a short, looping video clip that will play when people land on your profile page on their mobile device.

Improved Profile Controls
A new, customizable space sitting at the top of your profile will help you to better control what people see about you when they land on your profile.

You can curate this space with data about yourself that you want others to see. In addition, there will be a new one-line bio field, and the ability to upload up to 5 featured photos.

Everyone can see this box on your profile, but you have full control over what goes in there.

Design Improvements
The overall design of profile pages have been improved to put your face front and center — reminiscent of many popular mobile designs for Tumblr pages.

Some miscellaneous improvements have been made to help you learn more about people you’ve just met and catch the interesting visual content from the friends you already know.

“People love seeing photos and mutual friends when viewing the profiles of friends or someone they’ve just met, so those are easier to see now on profile. Photos and friends are right at the top, making getting to know someone and seeing the world through your friends’ eyes as easy as scrolling.”

These new features are all initially be rolled out as a test amongst a small number of iPhone users in the UK and California. Facebook says these features will be available to more people soon.

By Matt Southern SEO Tips.

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Blog SEO Costa Rica

CTP confirma que Uber opera de manera ilegal en Costa Rica

ilegal

La Dirección Jurídica del Consejo de Transporte Público (CTP) confirmó que Uber opera de manera ilegal en el país, pues lo considera transporte privado remunerado.

“El servicio de transporte que ofrece Uber, a través de una aplicación app, mediante el móvil, es un servicio de transporte remunerado de personas ilegal dado que no cuenta con las autorizaciones correspondientes”, indica un dictamen conocido este jueves por los directivos del CTP.

Para Mario Zárate, Director Ejecutivo del CTP, este criterio jurídico confirma la posición de ellos desde un inicio, en el que el titular único del servicio de transportes público remunerado de personas es el Estado Costarricense, por lo cual no se puede dar este servicio sin autorización del CTP.

“Tanto Uber como cualquier otra empresa nacional o extranjera, requiere de la aprobación del Consejo de Transporte Público, para poner en marcha el servicio de transporte remunerado de personas que pretenden brindarlo mediante una aplicación app móvil”, sostiene el informe.

Sobre la posibilidad de que Uber pueda operar amparado al Tratado de Libre Comercio entre República Dominicana, Centroamérica y Estados Unidos, como se ha indicado, el criterio jurídico es claro al indicar que Costa Rica se reservó todo lo vinculado al transporte de personas en sus diferentes modalidades.

El día en que entró a operar Uber en el país, un Peugeot y un Volkswagen fueron los dos primeros carros que la Policía de Tránsito sacó de circulación por la prestación del servicio, desde ese día no se ha detenido a otro conductor por brindar este servicio.

La Policía de Tránsito multó a 4.260 personas por brindar transporte ilegal de personas entre enero y julio de este año.

Fuente: La Nación, Costa Rica