To get a website up and running on the internet takes basically three elements: 1) a web address 2) storage space on the internet 3) a design for your website.
1) A Domain Name
That’s something like “pricklypearsolutions.com.” The domain name must be unique, meaning no one else can be using it. The domain name for businesses ends in “.com” meaning the site is “commercial” and there is “.org” for organizations and “.net” for tech. There are even weird endings like “.pizza” but you want the ending most people are going to think of and that is usually “.com.”
There are more than 115 million .com registered domain names, so it can be hard to find a unique name, but there are some things you can do to make your name unique, such as adding a location or abbreviating some words.
A domain name must be registered with a domain registrar. This takes time and costs money. The domain name registration must be renewed each year (or you can pay for several years’ registration at one time). If you don’t pay, you lose control of the domain name and other people can buy it. Also, some domain names are owned by other people, but they can be purchased from those people for a price.
2) A Place on the Internet
You need a place to store your website. This place is called “the host.” You rent space each month or year to store your website on the host’s servers. The price is based upon how much space you need and on how many visitors you have each month. A lot of hosting companies don’t actually own the servers where the websites are stored. They rent the servers or they rent space on those servers and then rent part of the space to websites like yours. No hosting company can guarantee 100% uptime because things happen, but a good hosting company works hard to keep their servers running.
3) A Website Design
The last element you need is a website design. That means you need some kind of software application to help you put your pictures and text on your site. We use WordPress to design websites. About 50% of the websites on the internet use WordPress. The benefits of using WordPress are that you can expand you website to whatever degree you want. You can add e-commerce or portfolios or a thousand other things on a WordPress site. And since WordPress is so popular, there are a plentiful number of designers skilled in using it, so you can usually find a designer if you need one.
Do It Yourself or Hire Someone?
You can put your own site together yourself, but there are a lot decisions to be made, which can require a lot of reading so you can make the best decision. If you have always wanted to learn website design, it can be fun (and frustrating). But if you have a business to run, your time might be spent in more constructive ways. And it may be more profitable to hire someone to manage all this for you.