Websites: What You Need to Know

Websites: The Basics

Websites are as necessary to your business as a phone number, whether you’re brick and mortar or exclusively online. WordPress is the best solution for a small business website, as it allows you to retain control over your site and make changes as you wish without hiring a developer.

Here are the basics of what you need to know about your website. First, some vocabulary.

1. Your domain name. A domain name is a domain name. By that I mean it doesn’t make one bit of difference where you buy it. Your domain name is the address of your website on the internet; the domain name for this site is BethGSanders.com. I use NameCheap.com to buy domains because, well, they are cheap. The only thing you need to do with your domain is to point the nameservers in the right direction. Domain names are generally inexpensive, so it makes sense to buy variations on your name. Perhaps your name is often misspelled, so you may want to buy the most frequent spelling error for that domain. Get as many variations of your name as possible: .com, .net, etc. Even if you don’t plan to use them, you’d rather others not have them, right? Buy your domain as soon as you decide what it is, as you have no special rights to your own name; in fact I originally bought this domain because BethSanders.com wasn’t available. Even famed singer…