Your website is the main entrance to your business online. Thankfully, there’s no laying down bricks or lengthy discussions with council planning like there is when setting up your business in the real world.
When you’re creating a website for your business, there’s three things you need to get started:
- Your Domain Name
- Your Website Hosting
- Your Content Management System
Here’s a walkthrough on what these are, and how they work together, to get your business in a brand new home online.
What is a Domain Name?
,Your domain name is the location of your business online. Think of it as the same as your store business, but digital.
This is what people are typing into the top bar in their browser to find you. An example of a domain name is amazon.com or jimsplumbing.com.
Having your own domain name makes your business look more credible in the eyes of your customers. You look like somebody they can trust, and feel like they’re not gonna get ripped off.
You can get a domain name through a service like GoDaddy, who are one of the largest in the world.
What is Website Hosting?
Your website hosting is what you will use to keep your website up on the internet. Think of it like the building your business is in. Without hosting, customers won’t be able to visit you – because your domain will be inaccessible.
You can get website hosting through a number of different services. Like your domain name, one that I often recommend to small business owners is GoDaddy.
What is a Content Management System?
Your content management system is what you will use to build and manage your website. It’s the backbone of running your website operations.
If you’ve got the right content management system, you can have a great looking website without needing to know how to code or any fancy graphic design programs.
The one I previously recommend small business owners jump onto is Weebly, because it’s cheap and simple to use. However, Weebly is now a depreciated production, so you are better off switching to a competitor such as Squarespace or WordPress.
How your Domain Name and Hosting are Connected
So let’s imagine our domain is our address, and our hosting is our building. In this example, our website is our actual business. It’s where customers are trying to go.
Customers drive up and park outside our address, but without a building, all they’re seeing is a vacant lot. You need the the building so that customers can get into your business and start buying.
That’s why you need both hosting and a domain name for customers to visit you online.
You can pick up your domain and your hosting from the same place (GoDaddy) and you can do it on the cheap. You’re looking at $20 a year for your domain name and $180 per year for hosting for the lowest tier pricing.
You can use GoDaddy to search for a domain name that you like. Once you’ve picked one, GoDaddy will guide you through the buying process, and you can pick up your hosting on the way.
How to Connect your Hosting and Domain Name to Weebly
There are a few steps involved in connecting your domain and hosting with your content management system. But they have to happen to get your website online.
Here’s a guide on how to connect your new services, so they’re all working together. This assumes you are using GoDaddy and Weebly.
Go to GoDaddy and buy your domain and hosting. Once you’ve bought your hosting, GoDaddy will be able to assign it a unique DNS (domain name system) address.
The DNS is the address that lets people to access your website. Your domain name is a user-friendly version of the DNS.
When you buy hosting, you’re buying space on the GoDaddy servers. It’s similar to the space on the hard drive of a computer (or the building that holds your business), only your customers can access your website from anywhere.
To connect your GoDaddy and Weebly accounts:
- Log in to your GoDaddy Account.
- Click ‘Launch’ (next to Domains).
- Click ‘Use My Domain’ on the domain you want to connect to your Weebly site.
- Click ‘Connect to an Existing Site’.
- Select the ‘Weebly’ option under the Websites section.
- Click ‘Connect Domain’.
GoDaddy will make all those tricky coding changes to your DNS. They will also show you a few simple things you’ll need to do over at Weebly to complete the process. They are:
- Go to Weebly
- Click edit next to your site
- Click Settings and then click ‘CHANGE’ (under SITE ADDRESS)
- Click ‘CONNECT A DOMAIN YOU ALREADY OWN’, enter your domain and click ‘CONTINUE’.
By following these steps, you’ll connect your Weebly and GoDaddy accounts, and have a hosted website with its own domain name.
