No idea where to start? Here is some information to get you started
Depending on your target market, one of the most vitally important aspects of running a successful business can be owning and operating your own website. The issue many business owners have, however, is that they have no idea how to go about getting started. They dive in and are bombarded with pricing and nomenclature they haven’t encountered… “Domain names here! Hosting services! Backup Plans! Email and Calendar!” and they’re left with lots of product, and little info.
Well in this article we’re going to explain just what the two necessary factors to owning your own website are; Domains and Hosting.
We’ll begin with Hosting.
At its simplest, once your website has been designed, it has to sit on a computer somewhere. This computer has to be setup a certain way. The computer where your website resides is known as the “Host” or “Server” (because it is “serving” your web page to the world). So when a company is providing you Hosting, they are providing you a computer that your website can be stored on, that is secure and, at the same time, that everybody with an internet connection has certain access to.
Now, if it were as simple as using any old computer, everybody would host their own websites! However, there are many factors that have to be considered, and these factors can get extremely technical and detailed. We won’t go into them here, so let’s leave it by saying that, it’s probably best, for peace of mind, reliability and security, to rely on a third party to provide you with hosting services. But now you should have a better understanding of the services you’re purchasing!
Next, Domains.
Remember that computer we were talking about earlier where your website is residing? Well how is anybody supposed to find that on the giant world of the internet?
Well, just like houses, each and every machine that is connected to the internet has a number associated with it. Instead of a Street Address, machines on the internet have what’s called an IP Address to identify them. An IP address is series of numbers that, frankly, nobody is going to remember. For instance, let’s imagine that instead of Street Names, every street in the world had a number instead. For instance, Algonquin Avenue is called 432.123.56.123. Sounds pretty random and tough to remember, right? Well it is obviously very hard to remember a series of random numbers, and that’s why Domain Names were introduced. All a Domain Name does is correspond an easy to remember name, with a series of numbers. For example, right now the name google.com corresponds to is 74.125.226.40. If I wanted to visit google, I don’t really want to type in that number, I’d rather type in the name, even though they would bring me to the same place.
With all that said, it’s still recommended that you leave it up to a professional to take care of these services for you to ensure you are getting the appropriate service.
However, armed with a better understanding of the services you’re paying for, it won’t be as daunting of a task.