Schewanick Computer Services

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Website hosting. FTP. DNS. TCP/IP.

HTML. HTTP. WWW PHP. PERL.

Domains. URLs. Website names

Website building. RSS

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Yikes!

No wonder newbies get confused when they ask the simple question, *What's website hosting?*.

They get greeted with a bunch o'gobbledegook and acronyms and their eyes glaze over ... I know ... I used to be a newbie myself!

Let me see if I can explain this in a way which makes it clear to an absolute beginner.

* * * * Why would anyone need website hosting? * * * *

Well, they must either have or want to have a website, and for the website to appear on the internet, it has to be *living* on a computer server somewhere in the world - this computer is where your website is HOSTED [or *lives*].

Think of it this way - let's imagine you want to open a shop.

You will need :

* a business name people will remember [and an address] * a shop or an office [physical space] * more than one room in the shop or office * hopefully visitors to the shop or office

So those items translate to these when you think of website hosting:

* business name = domain name, website name, URL [Uniform Resource Locator] * shop/office = hosting [the space on a computer somewhere] * extra rooms = website pages * visitors = traffic to the website.

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How do I use the website hosting?

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You will need to build a website or have someone do that for you.

When it's ready you will need to *upload* it or *copy* it onto the computer you use for the hosting. If you don't know how to do this, the website Hosting Company will generally offer support on their websites, via email, frequently asked questions [FAQs], Live Chat or phone. If someone helped you to create the website, they will also know how to upload your website to the hosting space.

In general, hosting companies offer lots of great options when you pay for a year of hosting. Some of these you might use immediately, and others you may never use - it depends on what you are using your website for, who your audience will be, whether you're selling products or services, or providing information.

If you're not sure what all the options are, check out the website hosting company's website and read all about what the optional extras are good for.

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What's included in website hosting?

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Here are some goodies which might be of interest to a lot of website builders:

* the most important thing - support - make sure you get 24 hr support, 7 days a week - this can be a combination of phone support, email, Live Chat, FAQs

* lots of storage space - this means you have lots of room on the hosting server to put all your webpages and images; if you have a lot of photos for your website, the more space the better

* download - the more the better - this means that each time someone accesses a webpage on your website, it uses what's known as *bandwidth*; this is part of your allowance for the amount of website traffic you might expect, and you need to check your website statistics monthly to make sure you are well within your allowance, otherwise you will generally be charged extra for a LOT of traffic using up a LOT of bandwidth

* shopping cart / e-commerce - if you plan to sell a lot of items, you might be interested in having a shopping cart

* email accounts - you might be offered 5, 10 or 20 email accounts - think about what you might use them for - you'd be surprised! How about one for you and one for each staff member [if needed], info@, billing@, sales@, enquiries@ ... I'm sure you can think of more which might suit your business and website

* mailing list - if you plan to attract your website visitors to return to your site, you might consider setting up a mailing list for a Newsletter; this is good for prospective clients as well as regular clients

* autoresponders - this is a series of emails which get sent off at pre-determined dates, e.g. the day someone signs up, two days later, 5 days later etc; you use these to offer free information to anyone who comes to your website - something interesting, to get them to come back

* database - if you're going to collect names, or going to sell products, you will probably need a database; if your website hosting has this as part of the hosting package, that's a great idea

* web builder - an automated website builder online so anyone [without programming skills] can quickly and easily create their own website and publish it online - no need to hire or pay a technical person to help, you can do it yourself - this is also an excellent feature to look for when researching website hosting.

There are quite a lot of other features which might make your eyes glaze over at this point, so I'll save those for another article ... :o>

Links of interest:

http://www.BuildAWebsiteTonight.com - online web builder including hosting

http://www.OfficeDocsDomains.com - buy your domain, free url forwarding

http://www.BuildAWebsiteTonight-Hosting.info - 100 emails, lots of features

I hope this has made your understanding of website hosting a little clearer, and has taken away the mystery of unknown territory in the internet. Whatever you choose to do, have fun along the way, and everyone around you will benefit from your enthusiasm.

Now - get to it!

About the author:

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2005 Teena Hughes Teena has been building websites, providing website hosting, web builders and domains and helping people get their websites online for many years . Visit the Forum at http://www.BuildAWebsiteTonight.com; sign up for a free newsletter on building websites and small business topics http://www.BuildAWebsiteTonight.com/e/