Website Definitions You Need To Know

Maneuvering your way through the confusing world of setting up a website can be frustrating. Here are some definitions of the words you need to know so you can move forward with confidence:

Domain Name: A unique name that you choose for your website. For example, the domain name of this website is wixdesignher.com. You need to purchase a domain name from someplace like Go Daddy, Wix, Network Solutions, or any other company that sells domain names. Choosing your domain name is important because you want it to be something that best represents your business and will be easy for people to remember.

Hosting: Now that you have your domain name you need to find a place that it can live. A web hosting service provides the place on the internet where your domain name can be found. It's what allows your website to be found on the internet. When you publish a Wix website, it's automatically hosted on Wix. So Wix would be your web host provider. This is also something that you need to pay for. Typically it's either a monthly or annual fee.

Website: This is what you create and design that people see when they find you on the internet. You can DIY with a website design platform such as Wix, Squarespace or Weebly. Or you can hire a design expert to create one for you. If you aren't sure what these terms are and not technically inclined, then I recommend hiring a design expert to help you. In the long run you'll be happy you did as it cuts out all the confusion and frustration that so many people experience when they design their own site.

Search Engine: When you want to find a product or service online you type in the words or phrases in a search engine such as Google or Bing. These are information retrieval systems that help you find what you are looking for. If you are old enough to remember the card catalog in a library, that's what a search engine is except it's on the internet. There are millions and millions of webpages these search engines crawl to come up with the best solutions for the words you typed. Which brings us to our next definition: keywords.

Keywords: These are the words people are using to find you online. So you want to be sure you are using these words and phrases on your website. The secret is knowing what keywords your potential clients and buyers are using to find you. They might type in something completely different than what you would use to describe your service or product. You need to know the language they use and the content they want in order to come up higher in search results.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization): SEO, or search engine optimization, is the ongoing marketing efforts you put in place helping drive traffic to your site. Just publishing your website online doesn't get you on page one of Google. It's a discipline and strategy that takes time and effort. There are many aspects to SEO including using appropriate keywords, having other sites link back to your site, structuring your site in an SEO friendly manner, and more. If you just have your site hanging out there and you're not actively working on driving traffic to your site (i.e. blogging and posting that blog on social media so people can click on the link taking them back to your website) then you're missing out on a great opportunity to not just boost your website ranking but your business bottom line as well. Because if people can't find you, they can't buy from you.

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