Domain names, registrars, hosting, nameservers, DNS and so many more names and acronyms. Do you have questions about what is involved in bringing your business website online for you to reach your potential customers? Here is a high-level view of what a web developer works with daily.
You purchased a domain name because you wanted to go online with your business or brand name. Maybe you knew this was the next step in growing your business or someone suggested it was what you have to do in our interconnected world. Regardless of why, now you need to either build a website or hire someone to do it. And… it doesn’t end there.
To build the website, you need something to build it with and somewhere to store (host) all of those files, pictures and videos that make up your website. There are plenty of self-builder platforms available on the Web. Try a Google search for “Build my own website” and a plethora of options will be found.
But, you’re busy building and running your business, so you decide to hire someone to build it for you, a web designer or developer. Yes, there is a difference but that goes beyond the scope of this article. Your web guy or gal completes the website. It is beautiful and you are happy! What’s next?
Here is what is involved in publishing your site to the Internet.
Step One – you registered a domain name like widgets.com from a reseller of domain names. This company is called a “registrar”. They have the rights to register domain names and other web products through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the non-profit organization that manages the Domain Name System (DNS) and IP addresses for the internet. Important!!! Do not let your domain name registration expire or you may lose access to your domain name and your website.
Step Two – decide what type of what website platform you need: a DIY, self-builder or hire someone. If you use a DIY platform, they usually will handle the next several steps without really telling you much about what goes on behind the curtain. If you hire a web builder, they should explain the next several steps to you so you are clear as to what they are doing and what you may still need to do.
Step Three – hosting is how you store all of your files, images, videos, etc. on your website. This is done on a “Web server”. As I mentioned above, many of the DIY platforms will do this and charge you for this as part of their monthly or yearly fees. A person building your website may or may not offer to host your site at an additional charge. Be sure to ask them about hosting before you hire them so you know what you will need to do next.
Step Four – If you decide to host the website yourself, you will need to purchase a web hosting package from a web services provider. Once this is in place, you will need to set up your DNS (Domain Name System) as mentioned in step one. This is how you point your website’s name to an IP address. Computers don’t understand names like humans and require DNS to translate the name to something they understand like an IP address.
The DNS entries you make are done on a special server known as a “nameserver”, because they translate names into IP addresses and more. Usually, your registrar, where you bought your domain name, already has a nameserver for you to use to get this done quickly and in one convenient location. The thing to remember in this step is you will need to input the IP address your hosting provider issues for your website. If you have someone else build and host your site, you may need to provide them access to make this entry if you don’t want to do it yourself.
Once all of these entries are done, your website may take a short amount of time to “propagate” through the Internet and start showing in your browser when type in your domain name – widgets.com or whatever you registered.
If you have any additional questions about web design, hosting, or selecting a web designer in the Temecula Valley, please reach out to Avatar Web Services at tom@avatarws.com.