What Will Your Domain Name Be?

Choosing a domain name is important. Ideally, the URL (your web address) would include a keyword related to your product or service, which is good for SEO, and contain your company name, which is great for brand recognition. You are likely going to choose a .com or .ca URL, depending on your country and audience. You can even choose to purchase both and have one redirect to the other. You can check to see if your preferred URL is available and register your domain through GoDaddy here.

Where is Your Domain Registered?

If you’ve already registered your domain, it’s important to make sure you’re renewing it on an annual basis. Often domain registrars will offer multiple year renewal programs, which are cheaper and give you peace of mind that your domain ownership is protected. File your domain registrar login information in a safe place. You’ll only really need to access this if you need to renew your domain or launch a website. If you’re not sure where your domain is registered, you can use WHOIS for hints:

Where Will Your Domain Be Hosted?

Once you’ve registered your domain, you can choose your hosting set up. If you’ve registered through GoDaddy, you may also want to host through GoDaddy. There are a lot of great reasons to host through GoDaddy, including 24/7 support, optimized servers and having your SSL certificate included. An SSL certificate is essential to encrypt and protect your site’s data and ensure you get found online. Frontline Consulting can offer recommendations on hosting options that suit your individual needs. If you’re building a WordPress site, GoDaddy has some great and affordable options.

Have You Connected Your Domain Name To Your Hosting Account?

Once your domain has been registered and you’ve selected your hosting platform (or in conjunction with this), you’ll begin to build your website. Once this process is complete, it’s time to connect your domain name to your hosting account in order to launch your site.

Basically, if your website is your house, the hosting is the land underneath your house. Your domain registration is the address of your house, and the internet is the street that leads traffic to your house. By connecting your domain name to your hosting account you’re telling your hosting account what your address is. If you’re using GoDaddy, here are the steps you need to take to connect your domain name to your hosting account:

Here’s a breakdown of all the steps from GoDaddy.

Feeling Overwhelmed?

Many businesses either don’t have the time or the patience to build and launch a website. Dealing with the many issues that arise can be enough to make you want to abandon the whole process. Rest assured, regardless of the path you chose for domain hosting and registration, Frontline is here to help! From initial web development and design to website launch, we’ll guide you through the whole process and make recommendations based on what’s best for you.

Ready to get started? Contact us today for a free custom quote on your web development project.

The post Tips, Tricks & Recommendations for Domains & Hosting appeared first on Frontline Web Consulting.

SEO can be complicated, especially with all the terminology you have to get familiar with. Keywords, as an example. What are long-tail, medium-tail, and short-tail keywords? What’s the difference and what do they do? We have simplified these terms for you to help you understand more about each one.

Short-Tail Keywords

Short-tail keywords are the most broad category of keywords and have much higher search volume. They also have much higher levels of competition. Short-tailed keywords are usually one or two words that cover a broader subject, like ”coffee”. Many users may be searching this term on Google, but not all for the same reason.

Short-tail keywords can fit just about anywhere in your content and are likely to end up in your medium and long-tail keywords regardless.

 Medium-Tail Keywords

Medium-tail keywords are somewhere in between short and long-tail keywords. They are a little more specific than short-tail keywords, but still broader than long-tail keywords. For example; ”organic coffee shop”. You know these users are searching for organic coffee shops, but not whether they are interested in visiting one or merely curious about what they are.

Medium-tail keywords work best in headers and even the slugs in URLs. They’re also great in page titles and, in some cases, may even be great business or website names. “The Organic Coffee Shop” may not sound very creative, but you can bet it will be at the top of search results when users are searching for organic coffee shops.

Long-Tail Keywords

Long-tail keywords have the lowest search volume, but that doesn’t make them any less worth your consideration! Long-tail keywords are very specific and represent a user that is more committed to the idea of making a purchase or fulfilling some other conversion you may be looking for. For example; ”best organic coffee shops near me”. They are specifically searching for highly rated coffee shops located nearby them, which is a pretty strong indicator they are interested in visiting one of these coffee shops.

Long-tail keywords can work in h1 headers, but work best in h2 or h3 headers as well as in the body text of your content.

Don’t worry if all the terms and details related to SEO still go over your head a bit at first. It takes time and experience to really get a better understanding of how everything works. Still need help with your SEO? Contact the experts at Frontline Consulting today and book a FREE consultation!

The post SEO: Long, Medium, & Short Tail Keywords appeared first on Frontline Web Consulting.

An often-overlooked aspect of SEO is backlinking. Backlinks can either boost your website’s position to the top of search results or claw it back to the shadows of page six on Google. Since you want your website to see the light of day, let’s take a look at what backlinks are and what you can do to improve your backlink profile.

What Are Backlinks?

Backlinks are links from other domains that direct traffic to your website. Think of it like a recommendation; one store makes a recommendation to a potential customer about another store that may meet their needs. Backlinks are a source of traffic, but they also help build your authority score on Google. The more quality backlinks you have, the more Google sees how good your website is.

Backlink Audit & Toxicity

Knowing what domains are linking to your own domain is incredibly helpful for a couple of reasons. For one, you want to learn more about where your audience is coming from. Secondly, you want to look for more backlinking opportunities. Lastly, you want to make sure your backlink profile isn’t full of toxic backlinks.

Toxic backlinks are linking domains or pages that contain any number of red flags, such as malicious software, spam, or paid backlinks. These backlinks are ‘toxic’ and can harm your SEO.

To find out what your backlink profile looks like, you can use tools such as Semrush, or Google Search Console.

Removing Toxic Backlinks

Removing a toxic backlink is a quick process, but not always a totally straightforward one. One way to remove a toxic backlink is to reach out to the owner of the linking domain and politely ask them to remove the link to your website. But if time passes and you either don’t get a response or the link isn’t removed, what do you do then?

Disavowing backlinks requires the use of Google’s ‘disavow tool’. The disavow tool tells Google and its users that you do not recognize the backlink as valid and don’t associate yourself with it. Using the tool requires submitting a TXT file with specific formatting.

Building Better Backlinks

The only way to build a better backlink profile—other than removing or disavowing toxic backlinks—is to take the time to do so. Backlink outreach is a lot of work, but it will improve your website’s position considerably.

The easiest way to start building a bigger backlink profile is to search for instances where your website or business is mentioned but is not linked. Reach out to the owner of the website and politely ask about adding a link in their article or page to your website where they mention you.

The other, more difficult method of building your backlink profile is to reach out to other, relevant websites that may have some content that relates to your website or business. Be sure that you aren’t reaching out to a competitor, but rather a blogger, or a website that is closely related to your topic but could easily defer to your website.

Backlinking takes a lot of time and it’s a lot of work, but it is so worth it. That’s why you can count on Frontline Consulting to take those extra steps for you as we delve into your backlink profile and take the necessary steps to improve your SEO. Contant us today for and book a free consultation!

The post SEO – Basics Of Backlinks appeared first on Frontline Web Consulting.

When I began writing for SEO for my local non-profit organization, I found that its specific topics could make it difficult to get its website to rank on Google. That’s because the keywords for it didn’t have as many results or as much traffic as mainstream content. But what if I told you that there’s a way to make SEO work for your local niche interest business, no matter how obscure it is?

Here’s how you can get your unique content to rank on Google.

Related Keywords

When finding keywords for your content, what might be an obvious term for you may be outside of another’s scope of knowledge. For example; let’s say you have a page about ‘bird fanciers’, people who breed and show birds. Those within that community will know what a ‘fancier’ is, but most would know them as ‘bird breeders’. So, instead of trying to rank for ‘bird fancier’, you would want to try for keywords such as ‘bird breeders’ or ‘parrot breeders’.

Keywords From Parallel Topics

Let’s say that you are still having trouble finding keywords directly related to your topic. Even if you aren’t, there’s still another trick you can use to make sure the right audience finds your content. Search for keywords from parallel topics, topics that may not be directly about your topic, but are still indirectly related to your topic. For example; instead of only ranking for ‘bird breeders’, you may have an easier time ranking for ‘pet birds’, or even just pets in general.

Niche Backlinks

A very powerful SEO tool is backlinking. Finding other entities that relate to your niche can present you with an opportunity to get more traffic to your unique content through a link from another creator’s content. For example; let’s say there’s a content creator who has published a resource on the best places to get pet birds in your area. This is your chance to reach out to the creator and offer your own content about bird breeders as a helpful item to include in their content. This way, those looking for compiled information on where to get a pet bird will find that other creator’s content, and in turn will find yours.

SEO, especially for unique or newer hobbies and products, is hard work. It also takes a lot of time. If you are in need of local SEO services, Frontline Consulting is up for the task! Let’s get your wonderfully unique content seen!

The post Local SEO For Niche Interests appeared first on Frontline Web Consulting.

Instead of spreading your efforts too thinly, focus on a few of the most important local ranking factors, first. As experienced digital marketing consultants, we have narrowed the list down to just a few of the top local SEO ranking factors to help get you started.

Keywords

Keywords on their own aren’t a ranking factor, but how they’re used is. But before you can use them, you need to know what they are. Keywords are search terms or phrases that users enter in a search bar to find something they’re looking for. For example; if you are looking for shoes, you might type the word “shoes” into Google. If you are specifically looking to purchase a pair of black sandals online, then you might type “black sandals for sale online”.

Think about what your business is offering and find or come up with keywords that relate to it. Put yourself into your customers’ shoes (no pun intended); what would you type into Google to help you find your services or products? If you have a product or service that sells well, then you might like to focus on terms related to them.

There are many tools out there for researching keywords, such as SEMRush or WordStream. These can help you find out more about how often these keywords are used and how tough the competition is for those keywords.

Another quick and clever way to find more unique keywords is to type in one of your keywords into Google, then scroll to the bottom of the results and see the section called ‘Related Searches’. These are searches people have used that are similar to yours.

Website Content

Now that you know what keywords are and how to find yours, you can use them on your website to rank better. But there is more to your website than keywords. Google’s search engine will prioritize websites that have relevant, quality content. This one can be a bit of a balancing act. You want to include your business’ best keywords in your content so that your site shows up in searches involving those search terms. At the same time, you want your content to be informative and easy to read.

It may be tempting to cram as many of your keywords as possible into your pages, but this won’t help you rank better. Would-be customers will ‘bounce’ from your website, and this can harm your ranking instead.

Remember who your website is for; your customers. Write your content for your customers first and worry about Google after.

Reviews

Potential customers are more likely to check out a business that has reviews, versus a business that has none. They are also more likely to visit a business with 4.8 stars and several hundred reviews than a business with a 5 star rating that only has ten reviews. People like to be informed about how a business is doing, and for that, they like to see a larger sample size of data, even if they’re only skimming it.

If your business isn’t getting reviews, the best way to encourage them is to politely ask your customers if they would like to leave you a review about their experience with your product or service. Make it easy for them to do so by linking directly to your review section.

Don’t be afraid of negative feedback! Treat this as an opportunity to improve your business, and you can start by responding to negative reviews, letting them know that you value their feedback and that you want to improve their experience. When other people come across the review and see your response, they will see that you care.

There is only one way to get better reviews; provide a quality experience for your customers.

Google Business Profile

This is the most important local ranking factor you should work on, and it’s thankfully the easiest. People will trust a complete Google Business Profile more than an empty one, or none at all. That, and Google will prioritize the more informative profiles using relevant categories. The elements contributing to your rank the most include your business name, primary category, and location.

If your business name contains a keyword related to your service, you are more likely to show up closer to the top of searches. However, it is against Google Policy to add any extra information or words to your business name in your profile that isn’t truly part of your business name. If you haven’t settled on a business name yet, consider adding a keyword to it to help people find your business. For example; if you sell shoes, you might name your business “Zappy’s Shoe Store”, instead of just “Zappy’s”.

Make sure to choose the business category that matches what you offer. This is a very simple step, but an important one, as this will determine what users will see your business in searches. If you list yourself as a ‘shoe shining service’, but you don’t actually perform this service, then it doesn’t matter that it’s related to shoes; users are looking for shoe shining, not shoes themselves. You want to show up for users who are in the market for your products.

Your location itself isn’t something you can control, but you can optimize your local SEO by focussing your efforts on the area you are in, rather than trying to encompass the other areas around you. If there is a business like yours in the neighbouring city, they are going to rank higher than you for that area, regardless of what you do. Focus your SEO efforts on your area.

With Google’s new Local Services Ads, it’s going to be more important than ever to get your local SEO down pat. Need more help with your local SEO? Contact Frontline Consulting today to book a free consultation, or explore more of the services we offer!

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To make it seem more familiar, we like to say that building a new website is like building a house—with many of the same benefits and frustrations. The decisions that you must make when planning your new site are very similar to those you make when building a home. How many rooms do you need? What neighborhood will be the best fit for you? Prefab, or custom? And, perhaps most importantly, who will build it? You want a contractor who understands your needs.

Firstly, both a house and a website are a home base for their owners. A house provides a physical space for relaxation, storage, and creating memories with loved ones. Similarly, a website serves as a virtual space where you can showcase your work, share your thoughts and experiences, and connect with others.

Building From the Ground Up

The Plot of Land – Hosting

When you want to build a new house, you first need a plot of land.  When searching for one, many factors can be involved. Hosting is the land we’re going to build the website on. Choose the wrong hosting company and you could have problem after problem dealing with downtime and server security. No use building a beautiful home that gets flooded twice a week, right?

The Address – Domain name

Your address tells your visitors where you are located – from the street you live on to your exact location on that street. A website URL does the same thing for website visitors, telling them where to find your business online.

Your house’s mailing address determines where you can be contacted as well as which services are available to you. Certain electric or wireless Internet companies may or may not service your particular address. The same is true of domain names. This is where you can be reached online, and it may determine who can reach you and how visible you are. For example: which mailing address would you rather have? 1515 Anywhere Street or 473625 Harry William Mountbatten-Windsor the Third Street? It can make a big difference—one is easily remembered, the other is impossibly confusing.

The Foundation – Platform or CMS

A house will not stand without a solid foundation. So it’s incredibly important it’s done the right way. The same is true of a website platform, it’s the building block upon which everything else is erected. Even the most beautiful house will crumble at the first rain if the foundation is weak. A robust back-end infrastructure, built by an experienced website developer, will ensure that your site can weather the storm.

In the case of a housing foundation, it allows for walls to stand on top of it, flooring to lay evenly, etc. The platform we use at Frontline Web Consulting is mostly WordPress, a Content Management System (CMS) which is powerful but user-friendly. It is highly customizable and allows us to do everything else so much more seamlessly. A content management system such as WordPress – in combination with a theme, or template – form the structure and layout of a website.

The Framework

Guided by the blueprint, a framework forms the structure and layout of a house. We create a layout for clients to approve very early on in the process. This gives them an idea of the website’s layout, the navigation to move around the site, and how content and images will be displayed. We remain in contact with the client throughout this process because we want to be sure that the “blueprints” match their expectations and needs.

The Construction – Website Development Process

This is the part of the building process where so many people get shafted—both in homes and  websites. You can get something that is presentable but which is not structurally sound. Or it could be solid as a rock but as ugly as can be. You want a house built to stand the test of time and be beautiful at the same time. For that, you need to find professionals who know what they are doing and who respect the process.

We take great pride in our work and enjoy helping clients to create beautiful and functional websites. We respect the process. We know what we’re doing. Our website development team works hard to make this happen.They remain a resource even after the website launch, to fix little issues that might appear later on. Just like the construction phase of home building, website development takes time if you want it to be done right.

Interior Design – The rooms, paint and landscaping

People build homes to be comfortable and beautiful. They want homes to convey a sense of personality and style. This is true of websites as well—which is where our website designers come in. They take your wants, ideas, and little touches and turn them into design reality. Think of this as the phase of home construction where we’re painting walls, picking doorknobs, and deciding which windows we want. The exterior of a house says a lot about its occupants. Is their paint color bright, or subtle? Is their landscaping fresh and well-maintained? The appearance of your website says just as much about your business.

Moving in – Content Migration

If you had an old website, you will want to move in your old content, which can take time but needs to be done right. If it’s a brand new website, you’ll need content. We can help you “move in” with copywriting services, just ask!

Home Security – SSL Certificate

SSL Certificate is digital certificate that authenticates a website’s identity and enables an encrypted connection. SSL stands for Secure Sockets Layer. The majority of website hosting services includes this. It makes the little lock icon appear next to your website URL. What it does is encrypts information passed from server to client, so anyone who might be peeking can’t read it. It’s essential for SEO as google will not rank an insecure site. It’s also essential for any site with login/eccomerce, to prevent that information from being stolen.

 GPS – Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Sometimes, just knowing someone’s address isn’t enough – you need directions to help you get there. So, you pull up a map or use your GPS. When it comes to websites, good Search Engine Optimization (SEO)  allows people to locate and visit your site with ease.

Upkeep & Repair – Website Maintenance

Without maintenance, even the most expensive home in the neighborhood will fall into disrepair. Website maintenance ensures that your site is safe and secure, optimized for search engines, and functioning smoothly.

Putting All the Pieces Together

In the end, each piece of your website ends up working with the others to create the site, and if one isn’t receiving top marks, the whole site isn’t meeting its potential. After all, it only takes one dealbreaker to turn a dream house into a fixer-upper. But you can make your dream house work for you and your business. Take a good hard look at how your website looks now and decide what work needs to be done. If you’re not the DIY home improvement type, don’t worry— we have “master carpenters” on staff, so reach out to us for help!

The post Ways Your Website is like a House: Key Tips for Success appeared first on Frontline Web Consulting.

To make a great visitor experience on your website, remember this; your website is not for you. It is in the sense that it represents you and that it is meant to draw visitors to your business or cause, but the content itself should be made with your visitors in mind.

Who is the (target) audience?

To serve a website, you need an audience to serve it to. Many who are new to websites end up with a kind of personal archive. Do a little bit of research into your topic or business and find out who is most likely to be interested in what you offer. If you are selling water bottles, then your audience likely includes physically active individuals or those taking part in sports.

What are they looking for?

Create content that will be interesting or relevant to your audience. If your audience consists of sports fans, they may be interested in teams that are currently playing. Do not shy away from descriptiveness; if you are a sports fan and your audience are sports fans, then it is safe to assume that they understand sports related concepts and lingo.

Why are they looking for it?

If content is king, then context is queen. Going hand-in-hand with the previous point, make sure that you understand why someone may be looking for the content found on your website. In the case of selling water bottles; look into some of the search terms that visitors may be using. Are they looking for gifts for their sporty friend? Are they looking for team specific bottles to take to the upcoming game? Use this knowledge to create a website and content that is useful to your visitors.

Now that you have a better understanding of your audience and what they are looking for, you can begin to design and write your website to draw visitors to your site. Keep in mind that the more visitors must navigate to find what they need, the more likely they are to leave before doing so. Only include relevant pages with necessary information.

Are you looking to start up your first website? Do you need help writing content? Contact us to find out more about our website and content services!

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