The Front Door blog.
Real writing on website speed, SEO, AI search, and the modern web stack. From a fellow home-services owner who got tired of slow sites and rebuilt his own. No fluff, no jargon, no padded word counts.
I Spent $15,500 on Marketing. Four Customers. Net Loss. Here's What I Learned.
I ran a 13-month, $15,500 ad campaign for my own business. Four customers. Net loss. The ads weren't the whole problem.
Tom Porter · June 4, 2026Read post
Why Your Reviews Decide Who Calls You
BrightLocal 2024: 88% of consumers would use a business that replies to all its reviews, vs 47% that ignore them. Why reviews decide who calls.
Tom Porter · May 30, 2026Read post
The 5-Minute Rule: Why Fast Follow-Up Beats a Pretty Website
Harvard Business Review studied 2.24M leads: replying in 5 minutes instead of 30 makes you 21x more likely to qualify. Why fast follow-up wins.
Tom Porter · May 30, 2026Read post
What Missed Calls Really Cost a Home-Services Business
Home-services businesses miss about 27% of inbound calls, and each is worth roughly $1,200. Where they go, and how an AI receptionist catches them.
Tom Porter · May 30, 2026Read post
Your Website Is Your Front Door. Here's Why Most Are Jammed Shut.
Your website earns the click. Then the lead leaks out at the call, the form, or the review. Why a redesign isn't the fix, and what actually is.
Tom Porter · May 30, 2026Read post
What Is Next.js, and Why Does Front Door Digital Use It for Every Site?
Next.js in plain English for home-services owners. What it actually buys you, what it doesn't, and the TruLight SLC numbers behind every Front Door Digital build.
Tom Porter · May 20, 2026Read post
Launching a New Website Without Killing Your SEO: The 12-Step Migration Checklist
The 12 steps Front Door Digital actually runs on every rebuild to protect URL equity, hold rankings, and pass the cutover without a 6-week SEO dip.
Tom Porter · May 20, 2026Read post
Wildlife and Pest Removal Websites: What Wins the 11pm Bat-in-the-Attic Call
What an 11pm bat-in-the-attic call actually looks for on a wildlife removal website, and the engineering shift behind two rebuilds that fixed it.
Tom Porter · May 20, 2026Read post
AI Receptionists for Home-Services: The Realistic Playbook (Priced, Scoped, Demoed)
What an AI receptionist actually does on a real day, what it costs versus the alternatives, the four failure modes, and what a working install looks like week by week.
Tom Porter · May 17, 2026Read post
The Website-as-a-Front-Door Framework
Your website is your front door. Open, clean, welcoming, or you lose the prospect to the competitor down the street.
Tom Porter · May 17, 2026Read post
Electrician Sites: Why Code-Compliance Pages Outrank About Us for the Searches That Matter
Most electrician sites ignore code-compliance content. Building those pages right captures the high-value permitted-work searches almost nobody else is fighting for.
Tom Porter · May 17, 2026Read post
Garage-Door Repair Pages: The Highest-Intent, Lowest-Content Vertical in Home Services
Garage-door repair is the highest-intent, lowest-content vertical in home services. The window is wide open for operators who fix that gap on their own site.
Tom Porter · May 17, 2026Read post
Plumbing Sites That Convert at 11pm: What Goes Above the Fold When the Drain's Backing Up
It's 11pm on a Sunday and water is coming through a kitchen cabinet. The plumbing site that captures the call has three fields and a tappable phone number.
Tom Porter · May 17, 2026Read post
The HVAC Website That Wins Furnace-Emergency Calls in January
Furnace fails at 6am in January. The HVAC website that gets the call has a phone number above the fold and loads in two seconds.
Tom Porter · May 17, 2026Read post
Why Your Phone Isn't Ringing (It's Probably Not the Website, Diagnose in 4 Steps)
When the phone stops ringing, the website is rarely the actual problem. The four-step diagnostic before you spend $4,000 on a rebuild.
Tom Porter · May 17, 2026Read post
The Missed-Call Playbook: What Every Service Business Should Automate This Year
Most home-services businesses lose tens of thousands a year to missed calls. A three-layer recovery system that turns them into bookings.
Tom Porter · May 17, 2026Read post
Pest Control: The Quarterly Content Cadence That Mirrors the Service Cadence
Pest control runs on a quarterly service rhythm that matches customer search behavior almost perfectly. The cadence that captures each seasonal pulse.
Tom Porter · May 16, 2026Read post
Landscaping and Lawn Care: A Year-Round Content Calendar That Actually Gets Used
Landscaping demand follows a predictable annual rhythm. The 12-month content calendar that gets in front of the right customer each season.
Tom Porter · May 16, 2026Read post
Roofing Sites Built for Storm Season: The Hail-Map Landing Page Pattern
Hail hits your market and 20x search volume hits your competitor. The hail-map landing page pattern that captures storm-season revenue.
Tom Porter · May 16, 2026Read post
Service-Area Pages: The Biggest Unbuilt SEO Lever for Most SMB Home-Services Sites
Service-area pages are the biggest unbuilt SEO lever for SMB home-services sites. Here's how to build them right.
Tom Porter · May 16, 2026Read post
Bad Reviews You Can't Remove: Response Patterns That Save the Lead Anyway
Google won't remove most bad reviews. The response framework, with a worked example, that turns a one-star review into a credibility asset.
Tom Porter · May 16, 2026Read post
Does Your Old Web Guy Actually Own Your Domain? Here's How to Check (and Take It Back)
An owner tries to leave their web guy and discovers the domain was registered in his personal GoDaddy account. The ten-minute audit that prevents this trap.
Tom Porter · May 16, 2026Read post
What to Ask Before You Sign With Any Web Design Agency: The 9 Questions
Most local-business owners have been burned by a web designer at least once. The nine questions below prevent the next one.
Tom Porter · May 16, 2026Read postI Lost a $3,000 Job Because I Missed a Call. I'm Not the Only One.
Owner-to-owner: the call you can't pick up while you're on the truck is the most expensive call your business will ever get.
Tom Porter · May 15, 2026Read post
What Does An Agency Charge To Rebuild A 1,700-Page Website? I Priced It Out.
What does a marketing agency charge to rebuild a 1,700-page website? I priced it out for the Texas Wildlife Specialists rebuild we just shipped.
Tom Porter · May 10, 2026Read post
Schema Markup Without the Jargon (and Why It Matters More Than Ever for AI)
Schema markup is invisible labels for robots. Here's what to ship, why AI search elevated it, and how to check your own.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
Google Business Profile Is Doing 60% of Your Marketing. Are You Treating It That Way?
For home-services businesses, Google Business Profile drives most of the lead flow. Most owners under-invest by 10x.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
Lovable.app and the AI-Website Hype: What I Learned Rebuilding Off It
I built TruLight on Lovable. Caught it timing out on my dad's iPhone. Here's what the rebuild taught me about AI builders.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
Wix vs Squarespace vs WordPress vs Next.js: Head-to-Head for a 10-Person Home-Services Shop
Five criteria, four platforms, scored honestly. Plus a four-question decision tree to self-sort.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
Shopify for Service Businesses: When It Makes Sense, When It Absolutely Doesn't
Shopify is the best e-commerce platform on the planet. For service businesses without products, it's a square peg.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
Squarespace for Home-Services Businesses: What It Does Well and Where It Stops Scaling
Squarespace ships the best-looking templates in the category. Here are the structural walls home-services owners hit.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
Webflow vs Next.js for Service Businesses
Webflow is the most credible modern page builder. Here's where Next.js still wins for service businesses.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
How to Test Your Own Website Speed in 2 Minutes
Open PageSpeed Insights, ignore the noise, focus on the three numbers that actually matter.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
Your Site Is Fast on Your Laptop and Slow on Your Customer's Phone (Here's Why)
Why your office Wi-Fi makes your slow site look fast, and how to test like a customer in the field.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
Why Most Local Business Websites Are Slower Than They Should Be
Most home-services sites take 4 to 6 seconds to load on mobile. The reason isn't your design. It's the stack underneath.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
AI Overviews Are Eating the Top of Search Results. Here's How to Show Up.
AI Overviews, ChatGPT Search, and Perplexity are reshaping search. Here's how to get cited inside the answer itself.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
Core Web Vitals Explained for Owners Who Don't Code
LCP, INP, CLS in plain English. What each means, what causes a bad score, what good looks like in the wild.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
The 3-Second Rule Isn't Enough: What Page Speed Actually Costs Home-Services Owners
Page-builder sites cost home-services owners thousands per month in lost leads. Here's the math, with sources.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
Weebly, Hostinger, Site123, Square Online: Why Builder-of-the-Month Sites Share the Same Problems
Cheap site builders all share the same architectural debt. Here's the honest cheap path that's actually fast.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
WordPress Without a Developer: The Hidden Costs Nobody Warned You About
WordPress isn't free. The real annual cost runs $2,850 to $8,350 once hosting, plugins, and maintenance land.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
GoDaddy Website Builder: Why It Ships Heavy and What to Do About It
GoDaddy is a domain registrar that bolted on a website builder. Here's how to keep the domain and ditch the website.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
The Truth About Wix Websites for Home-Services Owners
Wix isn't bad. It's bad for home-services owners chasing serious local search. Here's the architectural ceiling.
Tom Porter · May 7, 2026Read post
Want your site graded?
Every blog post here boils down to the same question: is your website actually pulling its weight? Find out in 90 seconds.