Website Definitions
What’s involved in getting a website? Here are a few definitions that will help you understand our web design services.
Domain
Host
URL
HTML
Flash®
Search Engines
Maintenance
Domain A domain is the name of your site. You may want yourcompanyname.com to be your domain. The .com extension is for a business. Many other extensions are available - .edu for educational institutions and .gov for governmental entities, for example. Ad Venture Marketing can help you with this first step of having a web presence. First, we’ll check the availability of your preferred domain, offer other suggestions if your first choice isn’t available, and then secure your chosen domain.
Host Once the site is developed, it needs to be uploaded, or moved, to a host computer. A host is the server that stores your website and makes it available on the Internet. The hosting plan you select will determine the beginning of your website address: http:// or https://. HTTP is an acronym for “hypertext transfer protocol”, a way to transmit information between servers and browsers (i.e., Internet Explorer or Netscape). The “s” indicates a secure server, one that encrypts traffic between the server and your browser and scrambles it so that it is unintelligible if intercepted. This is necessary for a site that will be collecting personal data or payments.
The host typically allows for one or more e-mail services under your domain. For example, you can use YourName@yourcompanyname.com as your e-mail address.
Ad Venture Marketing will help you select the best host and best host plan for your site, upload the site to the server and troubleshoot any problems that may develop.
URL URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator and is usually pronounced by sounding out each letter. The URL is a unique address for a file accessible on the Internet. Using the definitions above, http://www.yourcompanyname.com is the URL for your home page, the first page a web visitor sees. WWW stands for World Wide Web. This URL is entered in the Web browser’s address line. Every page of your site will have a URL, an address. For example the page with your contact information could be http://yourdomain.com/contact.html.
HTML Web pages are constructed in a programming language, HTML, Hypertext Markup Language. Even when a web editor like Microsoft FrontPage® or Adobe DreamWeaver® are used to layout a site, the underlying code is HTML. This code defines all text and image on a page. Your browser, most commonly Internet Explorer or Netscape, takes the pages of HTML code and displays colors, text, and graphics as defined in the code. Each browser interprets the code so the pages don’t always look exactly the same.
Flash® Adobe Flash® (formerly Macromedia Flash®) is the software program used to add annimation, video and interactivty to web pages. The term “Flash” is used to refer to this software program, the animated files created by it and Adobe Flash Player, the program needed by Internet users to view Flash programs with their web browser.
Search Engines A website is only effective if people visit it! How do you get people to your website? Your web address needs to be included on business cards, brochures, invoices, and all other correspondence to invite existing customers to your site. But, how do you reach people who don’t already know about you? Search engines like Google, Yahoo!, and Ask are websites that people use to search for a particular topic. In order for a search engine to recognize your site, the site needs to include keywords and we will include these in the development of your site. Some search engines are free; others charge a fee.
Maintenance It is important to keep your site fresh with regular changes and updates. Ad Venture Marketing can update and maintain your site, whether we created it or not. Our maintenance agreements allow for changes monthly, quarterly or upon request.