How A Website Works

The internet is a very large and intricate network made up of millions of websites. It is called "The Web" because of the way sites are linked to one another, making it easy to move freely from one site to another with just a mouse click. Anyone can put up a site and add another strand to the massive web. Every day, thousands of new websites appear, and thousands more simply fade away. So, how does it all work? And, with so many millions of sites out there already, how in the world can anyone ever find your website?

It would be impossible to put on this one page all of the information you would need to completely understand the internet. Here you'll find some basic information and definitions that will at least let you understand some of the terms you'll see and hear while having your website built.

                                        

If all extensions (.com, .net, etc) for the name you desire are taken, you'll need to choose something different. Domains can be purchased from a variety of places and range in price from $10-$50, depending upon who is selling it. The name you choose has nothing to do with the pricing. Domain names are purchased by the year and according to availability. If someone already owns the name you wish to use, try another name or different extension.

What Is A "Web Hosting Server"?
Once you have a domain name, that is all you have until you have your site built and ready to publish onto the internet. In order for people to visit your site, it has to be "hosted" by a hosting company. This is where your files are stored and displayed to your visitors. Hosting services vary in price from as little as $10.00 per month to hundreds of dollars per month, depending upon the size of the website, files being stored on the server, special services, bandwidth used monthly, and other considerations.

Hosting plan prices and available services will vary from server to server. It is possible to own a domain name without having a host server, but it would be the same as owning an empty lot. To put it into layman's terms, the domain would be the same as a piece of property and the website would be the store you build on it. The hosting server, since they charge a monthly fee, act as the landlord or leasing agent, giving you a place to put your store.

What Is A "Brick And Mortar" Store?
A brick and mortar store is your physical store location in the "real" world.

What Is "Search Engine Optimization"?
When people are looking for a particular service or product, they usually start with their favorite search engines, such as Yahoo!, Google, Dogpile, or any of the other hundreds of engines on the web. Search engine optimization means that the coding in the HTML (the language most web pages are written in) has been carefully put together to attract the attention of the spiders that the engines send out to index websites. Properly coded sites will rank much higher in the results listings, increasing the possibility of sending visitors to your site. Several factors are taken into consideration by the spiders (computer robots) when crawling through a site, including keywords, page titles and relevant content within the pages. With millions of sites on the internet, proper indexing increases the likelihood that a person using a search engine will come much closer to finding what they are looking for.

What Is "Keyword Management" And Why Is It Important?
Keyword Management is the careful selection and use of words relevant to a website and the products or services it has to offer. When search engine spiders index a website, it is ranked according to the number of times the spider sees particular words and phrases. Improper placement or omission of important keywords make a huge difference in where a site comes up during a search. Using the same word or phrase too many times just to get a higher ranking will often times backfire when the search engine realizes the apparent scam attempt, and will even ban the site from being listed at all. Proper keyword management is crucial and mandatory to achieve top search engine listings.