Domain Names & Website Hosting – What Does It All Mean?
Let’s start with Domain Names
So computers, tablets and mobiles can talk to each other over the internet, each computer/device has a unique address. This is called an IP Address and is made up of numbers. An IP address is not easy to remember and looks a little intimidating, so a domain or domain name is used as it is in a more user friendly form.
For example a domain looks like websites4sale.tech and the IP address looks like 219.14.12.53.
Can my domain name be anything?
In short, yep! Ideally, your domain name shouldn’t be too long and be your business name and/or contain a target SEO keyword. A good domain name can make a positive impact on your SEO and so your website’s ranking in Google search results.
Ok, I’ve chosen what I’d like my domain name to be. Where do I get it from?
Domains are registered and leased (you pay an annual fee to renew your domain each year or 2 years or more. You do not buy a domain outright). There are hundreds of providers out there. I like to use Namecheap for my domain registration and hosting. Another good company is Knownhost.
Unfortunately, just because you have chosen a domain doesn’t mean it is available for you to register. You can use the domain checker here to see if your domain is available.
However, I could register bookerdigitalmedia.tech.
What about Website Hosting?
All web hosting is not made equal, and as with many things in life, you get what you pay for.When starting out and if your website is small and more of a brochure type website, then it is to always good to start small with a good shared hosting account. Shared hosting is when lots of accounts are on the same server and all use that servers resources.
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Shared hosting is more often cheap than not, easy to maintain, and sufficient for most new sites. Plus, you can always upgrade to dedicated hosting (Dedicated hosting means the server resources are not shared) in the later stage should your website grow bigger.
There are hundreds of website hosting providers out there, check the hosting that works well for your chosen platform (WordPress, SquareSpace etc.). Is it scalable as the amount of traffic to your website grows? How responsive is their technical support?