For e-commerce merchants, one biting problem with having to sell online is the issue of an abandoned cart that sees shoppers leave their purchase halfway without proceeding to checkout. This problem can cause a major cut in revenue especially if you used paid traffic to send the customers over to your website with the hopes of recovering your revenue from such paying customers. For this reason I started using Cartstack about four years ago and felt that it was time to do a Cartstack Review to share the great experience that I had with them.

Combating the problem of the abandoned cart hasn't been forthcoming till CartStack came to the rescue a couple of years ago (2012), handling the issue of the abandoned cart using automated email reminders to alert shoppers about their left-behind cart, thus helping you drag your revenue back into your pocket.

CartStack Review - What It Is and What It Does

CartStack is an abandoned cart re-marketing system software (SAAS) which allows any business or company with a reservation system or an e-commerce platform to increase their revenue by encouraging and sending reminders to customers who left their carts halfway, to return to their abandoned cart and proceed to finalize their purchase.

The CartStack system is an easy to setup system which sits behind an existing e-commerce website.

Why CartStack is unique is its ability to handle the task of monitoring and reminding customers to complete their purchase all on its own. If you want to, you can craft emails you’d like to be sent out as reminders to customers with abandoned carts. The system sends reminders via text messages and the more accepted emails.

Features of CartStack

• Free custom email template which is professionally designed and tailored to fit your brand’s voice
• Two modes email builder - one for the novice (easy-to-use visual editor) and the other for seasoned editors (hands-on HTML source editor)
• Each account has access to unlimited websites
• Detailed activity reports – shows you how your abandoned cart recovery emails are performing and advise to either continue or change strategy.
• Shows real-time notifications giving your options to micromanage your campaigns
• Built-in A/B testing designed to help you determine which email content and subject lines are most effective
• Uses asynchronous JavaScript to prevent lag in loading times while keeping the data secure and encrypted
• Comes with email smart forms designed to catch typing errors as you type
• Has JavaScript API for more thorough customizations as you like. For instance, adding upsells as well as related products, differentiating customer segments, tracking customers over multiple domains, or coupon code additions.
• Using the official CartStack for WordPress plugin lets CartStack work on your WooCommerce abandoned cart too.
• White-label email delivery lets every mail come from your domain helping you build stronger brand ties
• 30 days FREE trial… and unlimited emails

The CartStack abandoned cart system is an effective way to get customers back to your website to complete their purchase. Here is a breakdown of the Pros & Cons of CartStack.com

Pros of CartStack

• CartStack integrates with many eCommerce platforms and even works for WooCommerce through a use of a WordPress plugin
• Custom emails sent to customers with products in their shopping carts to remind them of what they were shopping for before their exit and rekindle their interest.
• The system is easy to use even for beginners in e-commerce setup
• The customer service is one of the best and a major reason why CartStack still triumphs over its competitors.
• With CartStack you not only get to contact customers with abandoned carts but also get real-time notifications for proper management and analytics. You also get full data and reports of how the response is.

Professional Email Designs Created By Cartstack At No Cost

Cons of CartStack

• The major drawback of the CartStack system is its pricing. Considering that there are other affordable systems for recovering abandoned cart revenues, CartStack is pretty pricey. Unlike other e-commerce tools which charge a “commission” of the recovered sum, CartStack system works on a fixed monthly rate. While this can be really challenging, CartStack offers a $1,000 guarantee because they are sure you are going to make ample amount monthly.

Who is CartStack Made For?

Online businesses who are trying to improve their revenue generally would find that abandoned cart recovery is one way to do this. Addressing this problem is according to a report by SaleCycle, easy to achieve by using email reminders. From the report:

• 1% of emails sent regarding abandoned cart are opened.
• 61% click-through rate of these opened emails.
• 9% of those clicks complete their purchase.
• The recovered purchases have a 14.2% average order value than the typical purchases.
• On average, each abandoned cart recovery email sent brings in an $8.21 revenue.

From the report, we can gather that emails are an effective way of retrieving abandoned cart – a problem vastly popular in the e-commerce business. Having a service like CartStack handle the nitty-gritty of this e-commerce problem lets you channel more efforts into sending more customers to your business.

Also, CartStack has a simplified interface which makes it fairly easy to understand especially for e-commerce beginners. Though the HTML-editing, reporting and JavaScript options take some getting used to, the core features of CartStack system can be applied in any online store, either big or small.

Pricing of CartStack

CartStack made all plan have same features so you are not necessarily left behind on any one plan you decide to opt for. However, the pricing of plans is determined by the maximum email sending limit of your choice.

Our Cartstack Review Verdict

If you are considering opting for abandoned cart recovery system, definitely check out CartStack. The system has become a popular choice among e-commerce owners and there's hardly any unsatisfied customer. This is a testament to the effectiveness of the system – meaning, it's worth it.

With several e-commerce gurus touting it as one of the best e-commerce tools, CartStack makes the process of abandoned cart recovery using emails as easy and effective as possible. If you aren't already using emails for abandoned cart recovery, you should get on board soon, because it's an e-commerce best practice which is highly recommended.

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Local citations refer to mentions of your business on the World Wide Web. This can be mentions involving the combination of your company details like name, address, mobile number, website address, and zip or postal code of your company/business. Citations are very important local SEO that can lead to an increased visibility on local search engine result pages (SERP).

Local citations do not necessarily need to feature all your business details, in fact, they are available in several forms (of mentions) which include:

• Company name.
• Company name and website.
• Company name and phone number.
• Company name, phone number, and website.
• Company name, phone number, and address.
• Company name, phone number, address, and website and so on.

David Mihm coined the term citation in 2008 when he published the post Local Vs Traditional SEO: Why Citation Is the New Link.

For a citation to be regarded as a complete local citation, it should include NAP – Name of company, the address of the company, and phone number of the company. If a citation doesn't include all three of these, it can be called a ‘partial citation.'

Occasionally, NAPW or UNAP citations are often discussed. In these citations, the U (in UNAP) refers to the URL, while the W (in NAPW) refers to the Website. You also get additional value from the website link as it helps search engines better connect a citation to your business.

What to know about citations & links

A citation even without a link back to your website is valuable as the key value it brings is your business mention. Search engine giant – Google credits businesses with detailed NAP info when their business info is mentioned on the web. The reward for increased mentions of your business on the web is higher search engines rank especially your local rankings.

It’s important to note that most links from business directories are no followed links, so it doesn't really make a difference to your ranking. However, it doesn't mean that links are of no value. In fact, citations which have links are more valuable than those without links. The crux of the matter is that a citation would help your local search effort with or without links.

Let’s go into details about the types of citations and why they play an important role in local search domination

Citation types

There are two main types or categories of citations, the structured and the unstructured citations.

Structured Citations

A structured citation is the detailed business information (NAP) of your business/company on business listing directories. Most citation sites are business listing directories where your business can get a ‘mention' by submitting business information. A few examples of structured citation sites are:

• Yellowpages
• Yelp
• Superpages
• Facebook
• MapQuest

Unstructured Citations

These are citations of your business NAP on other websites which are not exactly business listing directories. The most prominent unstructured citations are Magazine/newspaper websites, blogs, wikis etc.

The importance of citation in local search rankings

As said earlier, citations play a key role in local search rankings. Let’s discuss some reasons why citations are an important element for local search rankings.

Prominence: It’s becoming a noticeable fact that the top search engines utilize citations for local search rankings, in fact, the recent local search ranking factors survey carried out by Moz indicate that citation related factors make up about 13.31% of all the top 50 factors for local search ranking. It is believed that the more online visibility (locations) of your business NAP, the more salient Google sees it be. What this means is that if your business is mentioned way more than the competition, it would be regarded as a popular business and as such given a nice boost in local search rankings.

Verification and Trust

Citations are an important verification element. They tell search engines that “yes that business exists.” Also, they tell search engines that your business is legit – this is by the accumulated mentions from multiple credible sources, all providing the same detailed information about your company/business.

Finally, having your business listed on prominent sites both national and local gives your business a sense of authority and a higher trust ratio. These combined have been known to improve the search visibility of businesses in the local search result.

Citation Consistency

Citation consistency has been hammered on as a major role player in local SEO. In fact, most posts about local SEO talks about this. Using a consistent citation (business name, address, and phone number) on all the important sites where you’d like to get a mention from is very important. Stick with only one citation that is both accurate and complete.

A few people are still getting worked up about citation consistency but that shouldn't be the case. As long as you are ready to put in an effort to have all the citations of your business profile across primary data sources, core search engines, and Tier 1 sites, you've got nothing to worry about. All you need to do is to avoid incorrect citations as they can have a negative impact on your local rankings.

You can get the perfect citation profile for Tier 1 by doing the following:

• Search for all mentions of your NAP variations
• Remove duplicates
• Update all inconsistent citations
• Maintain only one perfect citation which is both accurate and complete

Next is to clean up and perform an audit of your listing on Tier 2 websites. The Tier 3 and 4 are negligible so you can either choose to skip them or if you choose to, work on them, but it won't make any difference to your SEO.

Remember that search engines (Google, Bing) are smart enough to put business data in the right order, so you don’t have to stress yourself trying to put abbreviations and variations in place or in the right format.

Building Citations for Local Businesses – The Right Way to Do It

The process of citations building requires ample amount of time, so you either set out time to get this done perfectly or have it outsourced to a reliable service provider or freelancer. If you choose to have it done yourself, here are helpful tips to assist you.

1. Make use of a registered business email (@businessname.com) instead of a generic email from such providers as Google (Gmail) or Yahoo. Doing this would make your listing more trusted.
2. Remember that consistency is key, so keep your NAP – Name, Address, & Phone numbers the same on all sites. Formatting differences between sites can be overlooked.

• Choose the right categories and keep it consistent with all the sites you have your citations on.

1. When listing your business, ensure you add as details as you can inclusive of photos, business logo, business description, social media links, operating hours, and so on.
2. Finally, claim your listing. Many sites would ask you to verify your listing which you can do mostly by confirming email. However, places like Apple Maps, Google My Business, and even Bing would require the verification process be done via phone. This involves a call being put across to your business line while you are required to enter a provided pin to claim your listing.

Strategies for Identifying Citation Sources

We know that citations are very important for local businesses but the problem most business owners have is identifying local citations for their business. We have listed a few ways to help you get started.

1. Seek out citation sources for your country.
2. Next, tailor down citations based on your business category.

• You can also use your competitor’s citations to find local citations for your business. You can make use of White spark’s local citation finder which is handy for getting competitor’s citations. Proper utilization of the tool can get you a citation on your competition sites.

1. You can also find citations if you carry out proper research of your own. All you need is perform a few basic search queries around your industry and your location and you might have citation opportunities on your browser screen.

If you are more interested in directly analyzing a specific competitors list of citations, then you can enter their business information into a business search, and look at all of their citation sources.

Not sure how to find specific citations based on city or keyword? Here’s a cue on how to perform these searches.

For city specific citation sources, try the following searches:

• (City) directory
• (City) business directory
• (City) business listing

For niche/industry specific citation sources, try the following searches:

• (Keyword) directory
• (Keyword) business directory
• (Keyword) business listing

Take away!

Local SEO isn't as difficult as it's made to look. In fact, you can start your optimization process by building strong citation for your business. For modern local SEO, citations are seen as beginner steps to get visibility on SERP. After successfully setting up citations for your business, you can begin the more tasking part of building visibility like creating content, building high-quality links, generating engagement and finally reputation management. There’s no need of further working on your citation profile except of course your business information is no longer valid. That’s in case of a change of name or location or phone number.

If you're interested in Phoenix SEO for your local business, don't hesitate to contact us.

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There are several benefits of local SEO and you can confirm these from businesses who have gotten started with their on-page and off-page SEO optimization strategies. If you are a local business and yet to get started with this, you’d notice there are opportunities waiting to be had with local SEO.

Let’s Talk A Little Local SEO Analysis In 2018

According to the number one search engine in the world – Google, 80% of users online search for local businesses and 50% of these numbers who carry out their local search via their mobile devices head over to the business store within a day. The facts are solid and impressive but several businesses are yet to tap into the vast opportunities these local SEO offers.

Why be that business when you can snag a good share of the search visitors? Learn how to get started with local SEO and use the provided tips below to soar higher in search engine result page (SERP).

Google My Business: Claim and Optimize Your Google Page

If you haven't heard about Google My Business and the tremendous good it does for local SEO, take a minute and continue reading this. Google tends to give priority to local businesses that have had their Google My Business page claimed.  What this means is that your business has a better chance of being featured on the front page when a local relevant search is entered, if you have filled out and optimized your Google My Business listing.

To get started with this, head over to google.com/business and begin the registration and verification process. The claiming process involves Google sending a postcard over to your listed physical store location.

The key thing to note is Google expects all the My Business pages to be run by real business owners so you should have an arrangement with your digital marketing agency on retaining the Google My Business listing provided to you even if they move.

A few things to bear in mind:

• All important details like your business name, address, and phone number which are usually abbreviated as NAP are expected to match your digital marketing details. Don’t forget to fill-in on business hours, categories, types of payment accepted and so on.
• A picture speaks a thousand words, so have handy high-quality photographs of the space uploaded (both front and insides).
• For digital businesses without a physical office, you can hide the office address

Citations are good for your local SEO

Citations are mentions of your business online and the more mentions you get, the better for your business local SEO. Mentions would have to include your business NAP to be regarded as a citation by Google.

Inconsistent NAP has seen several businesses lose out in getting the online citation they need. Although many digital marketers have come to the agreement that Google triangulates data and picks out different business names which are linked to a particular business name, address and phone number (NAP), it’s advisable to use a single NAP and keep it consistent.

Website Optimization for Mobile Is Important

Optimizing your website for mobile is an important SEO practice every website owner should engage in, and local business website owners are not exempted. In fact, they should up their game because most of the local searches are carried out on mobile devices. You can start your test with the Google-provided mobile friendly testing tool.

Business Directories Help Your Local SEO

Do you know that business directories provide a valuable citation for your local business? It does, and apart from that, they help your business get more visibility. Use these action points to boost your local SEO with business directories.

Example of plumber citations from City Search

1. Begin your business listing on notable business review directories like CitySearch and Yelp.
2. Create at least 6-10 business profiles weekly using this provided list of business directories.

• Make use of citation aggregators like Acxiom, Factual, and Infogroup

1. Target niche specific directories and create your business profile
2. If there’s a citation opportunity on a newspaper website(s), grab it
3. Look out for local business community websites, ensure you put your listing on there

• Check if there’s a Chamber of Commerce or similar website by the state government and see if you get a mention from there.
• You don’t want to mess up on your NAP details while doing all these.

Optimizing Website Content for Local Appeal

Local content can help you get search engines to better understand your specific target audience. A properly written local content can help search engine link your local service to its niche.

You can also create a local news section where you could post well thought out content related to local events and news on your website. This section can come in handy for placing several local SEO relevant keywords which you’d like to be noticed for.

Many local businesses are already tapping from this and you could be started on it too. Businesses such as house repairs, restaurants, spas and beauty houses, interior décor, law services etc stand to benefit the most from using these tips.

Online Reviews Impact Your Local SEO

According to Moz, online reviews contribute about 8.4% to ranking. But before you scream about the negligible contribution, consider the 88% of users who actually use online reviews to form opinions on the quality of brands, businesses, and products. These bring the overall impact to a rather noticeable range.

Also, Google My Business reviews are the key source of SEO juice and before Google gets to display your reviews on its front page you need at least 5 reviews. You should also get some handfuls of Facebook Business reviews as they raise the trust of your brand among online users.

If you plan to go further and maximize your local SEO, you can try out several other review websites and get as many reviews from them as possible.

Example of some customer reviews from Google Business

Local Rich Schema Markup Can Be Worthwhile

You can add schema markup to your website code to increase search engines readability, however, adding specific local schema markup tags can do your website a world of good.

There are two key ways local schema markup tags aid your local SEO, they are:

• Helping search engines to better understand your business local relevance
• Adding perks of showing rich snippet info including phone number, working hours, address, reviews, rating, etc alongside your business page result

There’s a tutorial for schema markup for local businesses if you’d like to learn the ropes. So you can take advantage of it to learn how to get your local schema markup done right.

Once done, use the Google Structured Data Testing Tool to see if you’ve fixed up your local schema markup properly.

Rounding up

Every day there are hundreds or thousands of potential customers looking for businesses near them. There's no better way to connect with these searchers than getting your local SEO sorted out. This guide has laid out all the useful tips and tricks on how to get started on your local SEO, so take it up from there and have your business stare them in the face when they search.

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Have you ever tried to build a website?

If you’re like most non-technical types, your first try probably stopped cold at the first step: Registering a domain name.

You might have asked yourself questions like, “What is a domain name and how does it work?” “What does domain name mean?” or “How do I register a domain name?”

These are important questions that any Internet user (website entrepreneur or otherwise) should know the answer to.

Read on and we’ll walk you through what a website’s domain name is, why it’s important and what you need to know about it to get your website idea off the ground.

The Building Blocks of the World Wide Web

Unfortunately, website design isn’t taught in most high schools. This is true even though it makes up a $20 billion industry with skyrocketing growth and an increasing presence in every aspect of the average American’s life.

In order to make the Web more accessible, we’re going to cover its basic building blocks and how those fit together with your domain name to create the foundation for your website.

Definitions first: What is the domain name of a website?

A domain name is the address where users find and access a particular website.

For example, our domain name is “WebsiteSpot.com”

You might be thinking, “Isn’t that called a URL? Or an IP address? I’m still confused.”

That’s understandable. Terms like these get thrown around by non-technical people very often, leading to a colloquial shift in meaning—but the Internet is a technical place, and these terms have very specific technical meanings.

For instance, a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) includes a domain name along with other information that computers use to link to and from websites.

An example of a URL would be “https://www.BBQFans.com”

See the difference? Those extra characters are there for a reason.

On the other hand, an IP address is the address computers use to find and access a particular website. It’s a long string of numbers that computers like because they’re very specific, but people don’t because they’re complicated and hard to remember.

Now that we have our definitions straight, we can move on to finding out what domain names do, where they come from and how website owners register them.

What are Domain Names Used For?

The best analogy for understanding the domain name’s function is as a physical address: your house, for instance. Think of the IP address as the GPS coordinates for your home—useful for your satellite TV provider, but not for inviting your folks over on Christmas Eve.

Domain names give websites a sense of ownership. They describe the brand, business or person behind the site in a specific, user-defined way. They follow the regulations set forth by the Domain Name System (DNS), which registers each one and pairs it with the appropriate IP address.

There are two parts to a domain name:

• The name itself—whatever you wish to call your website. This can be any string of letters or numbers that isn’t already registered with the DNS.
• The domain extension—Also called the top-level domain, this is the omnipresent “.com” “.gov” or “.edu” found at the end of every Web address.

You’ll want to keep this in mind when you ask yourself, “what is my domain name going to be?” Once you know, you can move on to the registration process.

Registering a Domain Name

The non-profit agency responsible for regulating the domain name industry is called ICANN, which stands for the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. Only companies that register with ICANN can sell domain names to aspiring website owners. WebsiteSpot.com is one of these domain name registrars, allowing you to register your desired name directly through our Domain Name Search engine.

History of the Domain Name

The Domain Name System greatly expanded the capabilities of the early Internet. Prior to this innovation, commercial use of government communications networks was strictly forbidden. There was thus little need for connectivity beyond the few military and academic systems online at the time.

In 1983, Paul Mockapetris invented the Domain Name System. This decentralized worldwide directory service came with a few generic top-level domain names; two years later, the first domain name was registered.

The first generic top-level domain names were:

• .com for commercial use
• .gov for government agencies
• .edu for academic institutions
• .mil for military organizations
• .net for network infrastructure
• .org for miscellaneous other organizations

Later, country-specific domain extensions joined the group, prompting foreign website owners and operators to register names unique to their locations. Much later, in 2014, more than a hundred new extensions were added, including “.store” and “.cars”, allowing for even more specific domain possibilities.

Why Aren’t Domain Names Free?

Prior to 1995, anyone who wished to register a domain name could do so free of charge. However, increasing public interest in the burgeoning World Wide Web combined with a lack of competition led to commercialization of the registry process.

The first post-1995 domain names registered at a price of $100 for two years. Since then, competition and the greater availability of network infrastructure has dropped the price considerably—nowadays you can register a domain name for about 10-20% of that price.

The privatization of domain name registry made the market more competitive, and in 1998 ICANN was formed to regulate this new market effectively. Without this move towards a regulated free market, the World Wide Web could still be a centralized communications service operated by the government—very few people want that.

21^st Century Domain Names

With regulation forthcoming, the early days of the Internet were a bit like the Wild West. Domain names were being registered left and right, websites were popping into and out of existence and the great majority of these pioneers didn’t really understand what domain names were or how they work—but they saw opportunity and acted on it.

In 2003, Senator Orrin Hatch and future Vice President Mike Pence submitted the PROTECT act, which passed Congress and became law that year. This law included the Truth in Domain Names Act, which set forth punishments for misleading or deceptive use of domain names.

As the first years of the new millennium wore on, regulation continued to guide the shape of the Internet towards what we know today. Domain name speculation continued unabated, of course; in 2012 an individual registered 15,000 domain names in a single day, setting a world record. By 2013, every possible four-letter domain name had been registered.

The Profits of Domain Name Speculators

While business owners and prospective Web entrepreneurs are asking themselves what domain names are, enterprising speculators have been registering popular names since the 1990s. The idea that you could simply park a domain name and what for an interested business to pay cash for it is an enticing one.

As of 2017, the most expensive domain name sale in history was for VacationRentals.com, which sold for an astounding $35 million in 2007. Established brands and businesses that need access to a specific domain name are willing to pay top-dollar for the privilege if they have to.

This is why we recommend registering and parking domain names for business ideas even if they aren’t ready to be hosted. Knowing what domain name is best for a particular industry can be enormously profitable all on its own!

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Learning how to register a domain name is essential to owning a website.

In fact, it’s the very first step.

The name and other registration options you choose will either support the success of your website or hold it back it every single day.

Don’t worry, though.

Below, we’re going to show you exactly how to register a domain name and even explain other features you can choose for your site.

By the time you’re done, you’ll be ready to register a domain right away and begin enjoying the benefits of having your very own website.

What Is a Domain?

Before we jump into explaining how to register a domain name, let’s make sure everyone is on the same page.

Your domain is what someone types into their browser’s address bar to get to your site.

For this website, it is WebsiteSpot.com.

The domain is literally a web address. It’s the destination a web browser makes use of to ensure the user gets to their intended site.

You cannot have a website without a domain. While you could build a site and keep it on your own computer, no one else in the world will be able to get to it until there’s an address for a web browser to find.

How to Choose a Domain Name

When most people register a domain name, they need to do an easy domain name search. It's common to immediately pick the name of their business. This makes a lot of sense, of course.

However, the domain name of your site doesn’t necessarily need to be the exact same as the name of your business. Again, it’s just an address.

Some people actually pick domain names based on their SEO keywords. For example, a law firm may be called “Anderson and Sons,” but they know that people usually search for “Chicago law firm” when in need of their services.

Therefore, ChicagoLawFirm.com may give them higher rankings in Google. [Oh, and for the record, capital letters are ignored in domain names. We’re showing them this way for readability, rather than chicagolawfirm.com.]

Give some consideration to your future plans, too. At the moment, maybe all you do is repair computers. However, you know that someday down the road, you’d like to build them from scratch for customers, too.

Depending on your timeline, you may wish to choose “ChicagoComputerServices.com” instead of just “ChicagoComputerRepairs.com.” By the time you’re ready to make the change, the former may already be taken.

You can always register other domains and point them to your site later. Using multiple domains for one site is a fairly common practice. So even if you’re not building computers from scratch right now, you can buy a domain related to this service and it will be available when you’re ready.

As we just touched on, you need to be prepared for the reality that your first choice is already taken. Every year, countless companies find out that someone has already registered the domain name they wanted. After all, there are currently millions of domain names registered worldwide, and that number that grows significantly each year.

This can even happen when the domain is the same as your company’s name. Except for instances of copyright infringement, there’s nothing you can do (other than try to buy the domain name from the owner).

One way around this is to add the name of your service to the domain. For example, instead of AndersonAndSons.com, you might go with AndersonAndSonsLawFirm.

If that’s taken, you could get more specific and choose AndersonAndSonsCriminalDefense.com.

Also, as we explained, you might want to go with a completely different approach than using the actual name of your business.

You can opt for a different TLD, too. This is the very last section of the domain name, right after the second period. The most common one is “.com”, but others include:

• .net
• .org
• .info
• .us
• .co

Unless it’s already taken or the price is simply not within your budget, always opt for the “.com” extension. This TLD remains the most memorable.

You’d hate to have someone visit a competitor at LowFatMeals.com when they really meant to type in LowFatMeals.us. They might like what they see and not try again.
That being said, plenty of companies have been successful even without a .com in their domain name, so if yours is taken or otherwise out of reach, don’t despair.

Lastly, stay away from hyphens in your web domain. There’s no official Google rule condemning them, but over time they’ve become synonymous with spam sites.

Furthermore, hyphens can make it difficult for your potential or existing customers to remember your correct domain name.

Say your company buys and sells old houses, so you want a domain name that will reflect this. Unfortunately, that domain name “WeBuyOldHouses.com” is already taken. Instead, you use “We-Buy-Old-Houses.com.”

That may seem like a clever workaround, but what happens when one of your happy clients is telling their friends about your company? “It was great! I used this site called ‘We Buy Old Houses.’ You should check them out.”

Wouldn’t you worry that referrals like this will go to your non-hyphenated competitor instead?

With that, let’s now jump into our step-by-step guide showing you how to register a domain name. By the time you’re done, you’ll have completed the foundation for your very own website.

Step 1: Come Up with Your Domain Name

Even if you’re not ready to buy your domain name today, it might be worth searching domain options to give you a sense of what’s available.

Here’s how to do just that with WebsiteSpot:

Type your idea for a domain into the search bar and hit “Go.”

If your first choice is already taken, we will recommend others. You can always just type another idea into the search bar at the top of the page, too.

When you find one that works, just hit “Select.” You can go through the list and purchase as many as you like.

Step 2: Consider Your Privacy Options

When you register a domain, the international WHOIS database is updated with information about the owner of the domain (in this case, you). This searchable database is open to everyone, so if someone wanted to know who owned your domain, the answer would be just a search away.

If you’d like to keep that information private, just let us know on the drop-down menu right below where it says “Protect My Personal Information.”

Another way we can help is by guarding against malicious transfers of your domain. This would occur if someone used identity theft practices to pretend they were you and then attempt to transfer ownership of your domain to someone else.

Lastly, we can also give you a Certified Domain Seal (CDS), which will prove to visitors that the ownership of your site is valid.

This is important for ecommerce sites, especially those where customers make large purchases. These customers want to know that the person controlling the site is the real owner who will actually send them the products they’re paying for.

Otherwise, after a malicious transfer, a hacker can take payments without ever fulfilling the transactions.

Step 3: Get Help Building Your Site

Nowadays, you don’t need a ton of technical skill to build a professional, high-functioning site.

We offer two options to help people with building their site.

Website Builder + Hosting

Without ever entering a single line of code, this option will let you custom build the perfect site for your personal use or small business. It’s about as simple as learning how to register a domain name.

Hosting

If you have a pretty good grip on building websites on your own, or you’re working with someone who does, our Hosting option will give you the tools you need. This includes cPanel, which has been the industry’s most popular control panel since 1997.

This is also the better option for sites with functionality requirements beyond just your basic pages and a shopping cart – or for those who manage multiple sites.

Step 4: Add an Email to Your Domain

Would you like an email connected to your domain name?

For example, we have this email address connected to ours: support@websitespot.com

Sure, we could have used Gmail or another common option, but this looks far more professional.

We offer two options in this category:

• 2GB of storage
• Unlimited storage

Either way, you’ll receive five email addresses, a group calendar, and 1GB of cloud storage.

Step 5: Continue to Cart and Proceed to Checkout

After you’ve chosen your specifications, click the last button at the bottom of the screen:

On the following page, take a moment to review your order and make certain you’re 100% happy.

If you are, click “Proceed to Checkout.”

Step 6: Enter Your Billing Information

Finally, simply enter your billing information and you’ll have your very own domain.

Get Started Today

Now that you understand how to register a domain name, get started today.

As you can see, there’s really nothing to it. Once you have your domain name chosen, the entire process will last about a minute.

After that, people from all over the world can begin finding your website just by typing in your domain name.

The post How to Register a Domain Name: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on .

Registering a domain name is an exciting time for a business, especially if it’s your first one. It’s a rite of passage, and it makes your entity official, real and tangible. Long before you prepare to purchase, you’ve probably taken the time to come up with a catchy name that personifies your company. However, there are a few more things to consider before you click “buy.”

Is Your Moniker Clear and Concise?

Sometimes, a company can get away with a name which has nothing to do with the product or service they provide, but they are few and far between. Be sure your online identity is something that is associated with what the site is used for, and that it’s easy to understand. For instance, a pet sitter’s website will be easier to remember if it’s called FredsPetSitting.com, rather than FredsPetSittingGroomingandDogWalkingService.com. If the moniker you’ve chosen can’t be easily remembered or identified, you might want to head back to the drawing board.

Is There Room for Growth?

Beginning entrepreneurs often focus on a single product or service and build their site around it. While that’s sensible in terms of content, it can cause difficulties if you use it for the name and  want to expand later. It’s better form to register a domain name that represents your company as a whole, rather than a portion of it. If you’re sure that your product is a winner, and that you’ll be with it for a long time, consider getting both names. You can actually set up one website to redirect traffic to the other, so you won’t need to maintain and build two sites. An additional benefit to doing it this way, is that nobody else can grab your product or business name for their own website. You’re protecting your long-term interests.

Can You Get a Dot Com Domain Name?

When people hand-key a site, they will automatically enter a dot com suffix. In fact, some browsers are designed to automatically fill in “.com” if you don’t enter a suffix. Even though your service will probably offer you a dot net, dot biz, or other suffix when your first pick has been chosen, you might want to reconsider and select an entirely different name. It’s quite likely that your customers will go to them, instead of finding you, no matter how good your marketing scheme is. Conversely, if your desired dot com is available, you’ll likely be offered the alternatives. If you can afford to, it’s a good idea to grab them while you can to avoid brand-confusion later. Although most of the time people register a domain name that’s related, simply because the dot com was taken, others will be more devious with their plotting. They can set up a site similar to yours, in a cloak-and-dagger scenario, and take credit for your reputation, or worse, damage it.

Do You Want the World to Know Who You Are?

The obvious answer is, “Yes!” Of course you want the world to know about your product or service or you wouldn’t be spending the time developing a website. The problem is, though, that your personal data will be published in the WHOIS directory, along with your site information when you register a domain name. If you’d rather not have your name or other information associated with your new venture, make sure you seek out a company that provides privacy settings. Sometimes, the company you get your name from will place their information where yours would normally be for a small fee. If you’re a private person, it’s well-worth the couple of extra bucks. Moreover, it will help keep you off spam lists that are occasionally generated by bots crawling the mandatory registry.

Do You Know the Company’s Reputation?

It’s always a good idea to research the company you want to purchase through. Some will sneak in hidden fees or will have a difficult renewal process. Moreover, if you’re new, there’s a decent chance you’ll need live customer service at some point. Be sure to work with a firm which has a solid online reputation and good reviews. You’ll also want to be sure that you can get help when you need it, via phone or live chat.

It’s ok to celebrate the dawning of your new website and to be excited for your adventure, but take a few deep breaths and think about your long-term goals before you buy. Registering a domain name is the first step of a journey. It sets the foundation for your overall experience, so be sure to choose both the name and the company you work with carefully to ensure your trip is a smooth one.

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Getting noticed on LinkedIn is challenging, particularly for businesses. Linked In's business pages have much less flexibility and resources than pages for individuals. It's hard for small business and even midsize ones to get noticed in this very crowded space. Businesses can't request to link, not even with each other, which makes it tough to grow a  network on the site. Organic growth on LinkedIn can be a very a tough nut for small businesses to crack; they really need their employees to get on LinkedIn, link with the business, and boost it by regularly visiting the page, Liking its posts, and sharing them.

One thing to remember when you search for LinkedIn business page tips: the service no longer has tabs for products and services. Many of the how-to articles you'll find talk about using these tabs to extend your business' reach. This has greatly reduced the footprint for businesses with new pages. LinkedIn's own B2C (business to consumer) group posted a postmortem about it by Kurt Shaver, a B2B expert who was pretty annoyed by this move.

Ask Your Professional Contacts to Link With Your Business

I can't overstate this. Use your personal page to ask your vendors, customers, and former colleagues to link with your business. Ask them a few times if you must. It's the only way you can organically grow your network. And while you may hesitate to require your employees to join LinkedIn, send them information about it and the groups you belong to that could interest them. LinkedIn isn't just "the professionals' Facebook"; it provides information, education, and most important, business leads that could interest your sales team, for example.

Let your friends on Facebook and Twitter followers also know about your LinkedIn presence and invite people to link with you. Add a LinkedIn button to your email signature. Be sure that you limit these links to no more than two; some email services will automatically send emails with too many links into the junk or spam folder.

Post Local Content on LinkedIn

LinkedIn can feel dominated by very large businesses, so play the David and Goliath game by posting information they may overlook. Most of this will be on local issues, which fits SMBs very well. An operation like GoDaddy, the big kahuna in these parts, has a far more global outlook. So we look for news local to our area and it seems to be working. Posts that include our local city (Phoenix) and Arizona in the title usually get  more impressions than our non-local posts. And when people click on these headlines, they can see other posts that are also useful for our clientele—businesses with Web presences—regardless of where they are located.

Once you have enough followers to segment them by geography, you can look for local items to share specifically with those segments, much like you may be doing with email marketing.

We also know we can't compete with Social Media Today (of which we are huge fans and often share its insights through LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook) but we can still offer the type of information it has relevant to our small and medium size business (SMB) market. So an item on email habits that drive people crazy is something that our small-ball followers will read. It's as likely to interest them as the news that Google may test high-speed fiber Internet here (so they can presumably been driven crazier more quickly by all these bad email practices.)

Another feature business pages can use is pinning different posts to the top of their pages. Pin the piece with the largest reach from last week and watch the number of impressions (reaches) go up.

 LinkedIn is Pushing Its Showcase Page Feature

As Kurt Shaver and many of his readers noted, LinkedIn deactivated the products and services tab in favor of more posts and something called a showcase page. Showcase is intended to help businesses segment their products to attract specific types of customers. Businesses can create up to 10 of them.

If this sounds to you like it's meant for larger companies, you're probably right. The pages are entirely separate from the corporate page, which as Social Media Today points out, means you now have two or more pages to separately update. The corporate page doesn't even "own" the showcase pages.

I suppose a growing business with an exciting new product that could be a true game-changer can use a showcase page, but I remain puzzled why the two pages can't be directly associated with one another. I suppose that when WebsiteSpot buys out GoDaddy (the Phoenix Business Journal predicts an IPO this year), we'll create a showcase page for this new division!

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The next creature in the Google Zoo - Google Penguin

Black-Hat Tactics

Black-hat SEO makes use of the anonymity of data in order to increase SEO rankings. When it comes to link building, Penguin is designed to ensure that only quality links are provided. Black-hat strategies have provided sketchy links in the past that are often in the category of blog spam. Webmasters will buy link directories in order to boost their customers’ website rankings. The problem with this is that the links may be of low quality, providing no useful service or information other than providing a link. Once Google Penguin identifies this activity, it yanks the ranking.

Many people still grieve over the loss of site badges. These were links to your site that your visitors could place on their own website. However, these are no longer in compliance with Penguin’s algorithm.

Your Product badge has to stay home.

Webmasters

Most websites are managed by webmasters. A small percentage of internet users develop their website and maintenance from the ground up and take responsibility for the off-page SEO. The majority of us use existing templates, trusting the system to keep our website fresh and ranked. Campaigns to improve rankings will involve linking to your website. If you are informed about your webmaster’s methods of linking, you can be more confident that you won’t suddenly disappear from browser pages, blocked for breaking Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

Have you ever followed a link only to find yourself on a single page offering to let you buy something? Penguin doesn’t like that, and when it catches the link, it will downgrade it. Similarly, link bombing is frowned upon. This is the tactic of manipulating data so that a website ranks for unrelated search terms.

When Google Penguin was activated in 2012, it began filtering out these links and penalizing websites that used these methods to build rankings. There have been several updates to Penguin, the latest one being Penguin 7, or Penguin 4.0, on September 23, 2016. This is the first update in nearly 2 years.

Google Penguin is at the Core

Now, rather than just an accessory to be considered in SEO, Google Penguin is actually a core part of the SEO algorithms. The newest version of Penguin provides for real-time changes. If your website is tagged by Penguin, it can now be quickly reinstated once the problem is fixed, rather than just sitting there indefinitely.

Algorithms are confusing.

Penguin evaluates your incoming links. Your webmaster has to check each and every link to make sure it is a quality link. Experts advise that you don’t assume that a link is legitimate just because of the domain. For example, most people think the .edu domains are safe, but many students post garbage and sell the link just to make money. Even well-respected journals sell links, and buying one of these links is no guarantee of quality content. You have to check each one.

How to Fix Problems

If you get tagged by Google Penguin, there are some fixes. First of all, do a link audit. Any low-quality links, or links that could be considered spam, should either be removed or disavowed. Even if a link has a “nofollow” label, you need to disavow it, because the nofollow could be removed at any time, and you will have no warning. You may have used a promotional link years ago in exchange for pay or product. If you have not disavowed this link, you could be penalized for it.

There are tools, also, that will identify links to your website. However, some websites have blocks to keep these tools from working.

If someone has linked to your site and you don’t want them to, you have to ask them to remove their link. Again, a nofollow will help for the short term, but it is no guarantee that it won’t come back. These owners may refuse to remove the link or expect you to pay to have the link removed. Don’t pay them. Add them to your disavow file. Each disavow file supplants the one filed before it, so each file should have all of the links you disavowed previous to the latest submission.

Check with your webmaster regarding his or her approach to Google Penguin. You may find ways to improve your SEO ranking.

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Moving Up in the World

At first, AMP sites were displayed only in the carousel on Google. You can recognize them from the little lightning bolt on the display. In less than a year, AMP broke into organic ranks. Now you’ll see AMP sites listed in line with other organic results. This means that it must be eligible for rankings.

AMP has been featured on the Google carousel.

It’s been known to happen before, with HTTPS.  Google demonstrated that it was willing to change its ranking policies when HTTPS started gaining in popularity. Once HTTPS/SSL sites were secure, they were counted as ranking signals. AMP is not a ranking signal “at the moment,” which tells us that if it continues increasing in popularity and use, it may be considered a ranking signal eventually.

Increased Use of Mobile

Mobile accessibility makes money.

Daily internet use has tipped to mobile. The majority of people now use their mobile devices for accessing the internet, in place of using their desktop. While desktops and PCs are still used for offices and other work-related tasks, most other internet surfing is done on mobile devices. It only makes sense for Google to look for ways to not only improve service for its mobile users but to provide ranking for those aspects that make this service possible.

Google AMP as a Ranking Signal

AMP will probably become a ranking signal.

At this time, AMP is not yet a ranking signal. But, if the history of Google is any indication, it will become one. Google already considers accessibility as a ranking signal for mobile devices, so it won’t be a far stretch to apply it to all SERPs. Most webmasters began some time ago, even before Google started ranking mobile use, to convert their websites to mobile accessibility. Responsive design became the gold standard of web design.

Problems with AMP

Some designers see AMP as the natural result of responsive design and evolution of the internet. Others see it as a condemnation of all the work they did to obtain accessibility. The problem arises with the current limitations of AMP. Websites that use AMP are stripped down in order to increase speed. This limits the number of features that can be included on a website.

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