When you’re building a business from home, there’s no more cost effective way to promote yourself than to have your own web site or a combination of a blog and web site. For a newcomer, this can be challenging because you suddenly find yourself up against a bunch of words, process and techniques that are completely alien to you. Well, let me help you out by explaining some basic things that make up your web site.
The difference between a blog and a web site
As time goes by this is beginning to blur. From a technical stand point, there are few differences. They both are a collection of web pages. The biggest difference is probably in the organization of those pages. Blogs are typically organized in chronological order while web typical static web sites by category. Blogs tend to be updated with content more often while web sites hold more permanent information that may not need to be updated regularly.
The important thing to know is how you use a blog or web site. A web site is not necessarily going to make you more successful than having a blog or vice versa. These days, most of us have a combination of both in one web site. So don’t get too wrapped up over one or the other. They aren’t mutually exclusive although I will say blogs are much easier to start and maintain.
What’s a domain
A domain is the address of your web site or blog. For example, the domain for this site is WorkAtHomeSuccess.com. This is how the Internet finds the web pages you built. Anyone can purchase a domain name through a doman name registrar like eNom. They are often inexpensive and can start as low as $8 or $10 a year. You can also register a domain when you order a web hosting account through a web host.
What’s a web host?
A web host is where you store the web pages or blog you built. This is the storage of the actual files and data. You can’t store your web files on your home office computer because it isn’t set up to allow others (the whole world) to access your files. You wouldn’t want to anyway because it can take a lot of resources. Examples of web hosts are 1 and 1, Hostgator and ReliableWebs.com
What is bandwidth?
When you purchase a web hosting account, you will probably see things like bandwidth. The higher level accounts usually have more bandwidth. This is how much information that can be transferred in a month. Which is why some web hosts call it transfer. If the limit is 1GB of transfer or bandwidth that means you can move 1GB’s worth of data to and from your web site within the month. If you go past that you can either upgrade, or be billed for overage depending on how your web host works.
You may probably be wondering what is good for you to start with? Most web hosts these days offer generous bandwidth even on smaller hosting packages. It is very rare to run out of bandwidth for a typical web site especially one that is just starting out and does not have a lot of video or audio files to deliver. So go ahead and order your web host account. You can always upgrade later.
What is space?
Space is how much data you can save on your web hosting account. This works just like your hard drive, only think of it like a virtual hard drive that is on your web hosts’ computers. A medium level account will usually last a brand new web site a while. This is particularly true if you do not intend to upload a lot of video or audio. Youtube videos do not count towards your space because those are uploaded to Youtube not your web host.
What is FTP?
FTP is what is a tool (software) that you use to transfer files like images from your computer to your web host so you can put it up on your web site. If you are using a blog system like WordPress to manage your content, chances are you won’t need to use FTP much, but it is still very useful to have to install or upload things outside of the blog or when uploading super large files.
I’m using Windows, do I have to get Windows web hosting?
No. Your web site stands independent of your computer so the host does not have to be the same operating system as you are using. However, most web hosts are running Linux and if you want to run systems and software like WordPress which is built for Linux based computers, you should choose a Linux based host.
But I don’t know anything about Linux can I still administer my own site?
Sure you can. First of all, if you use a system like WordPress , you probably will not ever see the back end of your web host much and these systems are very easy to use. Secondly, most web hosts use a software like cPanel or Webmin which is a user interface to help you manage your account so you don’t have to get into the really technical side of web hosting at all.
You may need to get help to find your way around, just like learning to use new software but you don’t have to know everything about Linux 
So here you go a long list of basic but frequently asked questions about creating your own web site or blog. I hope it has helped the clear the air a bit for you. The bad news is, I have barely scratched the surface. There’s so much more. The good news is, if you are stuck you can always look it up. There’s a site called Internet Marketing Definitions that you might want to bookmark to refer to when you encounter unfamiliar terms.
Lynette Chandler enjoys discovering new ways to use technology or new technologies to use in a business and in turn help her clients apply them. You can find Lynette at her blog.
