Many of our clients are fresh into business and have never had a website before. They have no idea of what it involves to set one up and if you’re a non techie person it can be confusing. Not realising what hosting and domain names are, we do our best to explain how it works without getting too technical, we have a simple analogy to explain it. We compare a website to the real world.
How a website actually works.
A website is basically a bunch of files containing code which generates the text, images and layout to form your website. Like any file, it has to be stored somewhere to be found. The website files are stored on a on a host which is a giant PC otherwise known as a server. The host computer is connected to the internet and left on 24/7. You’re essentially buying space on a huge computer to store your files. Now the website files have been created and stored but how can everyone else find them? In order to be publicly viewable you need an address known as a domain name or an url. This address is specifically linked to your website space on the host.
It already sounds simple enough but to relate it to something generic makes it more understandable so here goes.
To put it in another way:
Think of your business as your website. You, your staff, equipment, staplers, chairs etc are the assets which make your business. Look at each and every asset as a file of code. These files of code compose your WebPages and ultimately your website. (just like your business).
Your business needs an office to store your assets which can be seen as a host. The office stores all of the components which form your business, just like a server holds your web files.
How do people find your office? They use an address (domain name). In the real world your address is the unique identifier which relates to your business. In the same way a domain name is used to find your website.
So you are your website. Your office is the host. Your domain is your address.
It’s that simple and the analogy goes on:
Like a real office building a host may hold one or many websites inside but each one will have a different address to find it.
As a business you can move office just like you can do with your hosting service. Does this mean you have a change of address? Well your business name stays the same but the office address has changed.
What if your business gets bigger and you hire more people or buy more equipment? If so you may need a little more space in the office. The same goes for a website, the more files you have, the more space you need from your host.
Whets FTP details? FTP can be seen as different keys given out to your staff to get into the back office.
Email?- Your branded delivery man. Some have there own delivery service (Horde or similar), some use the Royal Mail – HotmailJ.
It sounds like a mouthful written down but it’s a good way of explaining it to a non techie person who is actually plugged into the real world rather then the Matrix. I hope this helps.
