Picture this:
You need a website. You find a web developer and meet to discuss what you’re looking for. During your consultation, you are talking about the information you want on the website and the way you want visitors to feel. The developer takes notes, but at the end of the call, they start asking you questions that include words like “hosting,” “domain,” and “WordPress.” Little did you know that you’d be in for a vocab lesson when you sat down for that meeting!
Well, I hate to admit it, but I’ve been that web developer more than once in my career, throwing out words that I should’ve never expected my clients to understand. I was the web person, not them! (If you’re reading this and you were one of those people… so sorry.)
Over the years, I’ve developed a little analogy to explain these terms to anyone who might want to understand the ins and outs of building a website. Here it is:
Building a website is like building a house.
Hosting = the land
- You need somewhere to put your house (website) so people can access it. Without land, the house can’t exist in the real world. In the website world, you’ll be “renting” rather than owning. You pick a landlord (aka hosting company) and build your website there. If you stop paying, your “house” goes offline.
- Hosting is often charged monthly or annually. If your web developer has a hosting package (we do, btw), it often includes a level of care or maintenance.
Domain/URL = the street address
- This is how visitors find your house. You could have land and a home, but if no one knows the address, they can’t visit.
- You’ll have to purchase this and renew it as well. If you don’t, you won’t have a way for people to reach the website.
WordPress/Wix/Squarespace = the foundation/framework
- When you pick this, you choose what structure your house will sit on. Some give you more freedom (WordPress), others are more pre-built and restrictive (Wix, Squarespace).
Page builders like Divi/Elementor = the building materials/interior design
- Page builders allow you to decorate, arrange, and style the website.
- Often, your developer will pick this. Some are easier for you.
So, what do you think? Are you grasping some of the terms better?
By the way, when I ran my analogy past ChatGPT to see whether it worked, it loved it (#win). I asked it if there was anything else it would add. Here are a couple of extra layers it suggested:
- SSL Certificate = the lock on your front door → It keeps visitors safe when they come inside.
- Maintenance/updates = house upkeep → If you don’t maintain the plumbing or roof, the house starts to break down. Same with plugin updates/security patches.
- Backups = home insurance → If disaster strikes, you can rebuild quickly without starting from scratch.
- Bandwidth = size of the driveway/road → If too many cars try to enter at once, the road will be jammed unless you have a big enough road (good hosting plan).
There’s one last thing we need to talk about. If your web developer starts throwing around the letters DNS, they’re probably figuring out how to connect your domain to your website and email. It took me a long time to understand everything, so I asked ChatGPT to connect the terms to our analogy.
DNS = the GPS
- Here’s how it works: when someone types your domain (the “address”) into their browser, DNS looks up where that address actually points on the Internet.
DNS records = the directions in that system
- A record = “This house is located on this piece of land” (domain points to hosting server’s IP).
- CNAME record = “This house has another nickname/alias” (like saying ‘The Smith Residence’ also maps to 123 Main Street).
- MX record = “Mail for this house should go to the post office over there” (controls email routing).
Those are just BONUS terms because, here at Stratos, we believe in extra credit. Ha!
Anyway, hopefully, these definitions help you navigate any conversations you might have with a web developer as you build your house… er, I mean, your website.
If you ever have any questions, email me: julia@stratoscreativemarketing.com.
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