In today’s world, consumers expect the business’s they deal with will have a website.  Unfortunately for business owners, they rarely know where to start or where to go for good information.

What they do hear from their circle of friends and business associates is daunting.  High costs, unreliable webmasters and a feeling of not knowing how to wrap their hands around a project that could have a huge impact on their business.

The good news is it is much simpler than it looks at first glance.  The following articles are designed not only to help get started with the first website; but to put it in a position to enhance your business or endeavor.

There are multiple parts to a website, a simple one will consist of an IP Address, a server to provide access to the files needed to show the desired “site” which is “read” (displayed may be a better description) by a web browser, and an html document loaded on the server for viewing when accessed by a web browser. Already I expect there are questions such as: Where is the domain name? What about email? And the one I really expect from beginners, this still doesn’t make sense.

Let’s take the points out of order.  First let’s discuss the web browser, since I am sure you are familiar with it.

I want to change your perspective of the web browser, so stay with me.  If you have used a pc, you have written a document and saved it on the computer. You know that there are multiple programs that should open the document for you’re to view or edit; but those are specific programs (Such as Notepad, MS Word and WordPad).  You would not use MS Paint to edit a word document. 

Well the browser is a program just like MS word or Notepad.  When you open MS Word, you have to tell it what document to open.  While most people don’t do it, you can open word documents on servers located anywhere in the world.  The important part is knowing where the document is, the server or computer in which it resides has been configured to allow you to access the document and that you are using the correct program to open it.

The same thing is happening on the internet. The web browser is designed to open certain types of files.  Those files have to be on computers (servers) that will allow you to access the documents.  Lastly, the documents have to be written in a language(s) the browser understands, HTML. 

There are many languages used to communicate with the web browser, but all of them reside inside a HTML tagged document. 

So how do we find those documents?  Well the computers actually use something called an IP Address. However, people don’t remember numbers all that well, so we use domain names.  Computers take the domain names and associate the correct IP Address to it and route your request to the authorized server.  Which then let’s you open the correct file (website).