Web Glossary

Getting a website doesn’t have to be as confusing as it may seem. I’m trying to make it easy for you by posting lots of explanations on this site.

This page is a “one-stop” basic guide to terms you might read on this site, or elsewhere on the web that have to do with owning and maintaining an effective website that gets you more business.

The page is not complete yet, and I’ll be adding more material as time goes by.

These explanations are not meant to be highly technical definitions for geeks. They are simple clarifications for business people who want to understand what web-presence is all about.

Web-Presence – Simply, how you or your company are represented on the web. This may include you website, but isn’t limited to it. It also includes your keywords, your satellite sites, your social network, your articles, links to your site from other sites, etc. It is all the components on the internet that directly connect to and influence your site and it’s traffic.

Typical web designers are fixated simply on creating websites, and they ignore the bigger picture of your entire web-presence. At Upstate Business Websites we’re dedicated to making your entire web-presence as optimal as possible. The goal is to use this to get you more business.

Web Site - A group of connected files hosted somewhere on the internet. OK, that’s not accurate enough for a geek, and not clear enough for “normal” people, so let’s clarify:

A website is a “place” on the internet, usually starting with http://www. that represents an idea, business, cause, intention, etc. It’s the basic kind of place most people go when they are surfing the net.

There are different sizes and kinds of websites. An example of a small one would be http://upstatebusinesswebsites.com (the one you’re on).

An example of a large one would be http://www.google.com. Yes, Google is actually one great big website. It’s a specific kind, called a “search engine,” that helps you find other websites.

Web page – an individual file on a website. Some of these pages are “back-end” and not visible by the public, but usually what is referred to as a “web page” is a page like the one you are on now, that is part of a website.

This webpage is http://www.upstatebusinesswebsites.com/web_glossary
It is a page on the website http://www.upstatebusinesswebsites.com.

Blog, or Weblog - A website, or part of a website, where you can record your thoughts and activities, usually in a chronological order. This is the area where the website owner can update his or her readers to the daily goings-on of the business or other enterprise. It keeps the readers involved, and ads valuable content to the site. It’s also easy as pie to do.

Content - Simply the words, images, videos or other information on your site that is meant to inform your visitors. Content is usually provided by the business owner and formatted by the web-designer with input from the SEO team (in a best-case scenario, they would all be the same person) in order to present it best to the visitors.

Content is also created and formatted by the website owner her- or himself in the case of blogging.

Content is not limited to your website. Content in any informational parts of your web-presence. For example, you can add content in the form of an article, a Facebook or Twitter post, etc.

Hosting – A way to obtain your space on the internet where your website will “live.” There are large and small companies that have “servers” (kinds of computers that are hooked up to the internet to supply it with web pages). Most people rent space on those servers to have their web pages supplied to the internet. In other words they “host” with some specific company that rents “internet space” to them. At Upstate Business Websites we generally host with one specific hosting services that has the best reputation on the internet. (And it’s not GoDaddy!)

Hosting fees are like rental fees. You pay a monthly rental fee to have a site hosted on with a hosting company. Some web-design companies host their own websites on their own servers. I believe this is bad mojo. There are so many security issues involved with hosting, that I think it’s best to go with a reputable hosting service, with the best customer service on the web. That also keeps your site from being held hostage by your web design company if you ever decide to host elsewhere.

Domain Name – A name that identifies your website. On this site, for example, the domain name is upstatebusinesswebsites.com. The domain name becomes part of your URL (or “internet address”) which also includes the http://www. part.

Domain names are formed by the rules and procedures of the Domain Name System (DNS), have to be registered for a nominal fee, and are usually registered yearly. You can register for more than one year at a time, which usually gets you a small discount. Your webmaster can do this for you, also usually for a nominal fee, or you can register it yourself. I prefer to help you register it yourself; again, so you don’t feel held hostage by your webmaster (in this case, me). Your webmaster will need all the login information in order to be able to use it for your website.

Social Networking – By this I mean your personal and business social network. This includes all sites that your customers can interact with you on. Where they can leave comments, ratings, communicate with you and each other. This could include your Facebook, Twitter, Linked in and other such accounts, your blog (if you have commenting open on your blog), your YouTube or other video channels, public bookmarking sites, and other places where people can leave comments and ratings, or interact with you in any way. Social network sites are also sometimes known as “Web 2.0″ sites.

Facebook – Facebook is so popular right now that I made it’s own page for the explanation of it. Visit this link for the basic explanation of Facebook Marketing.

Back-end - The stuff that makes websites, pages, etc, work. Most of this is code, and not something a non-techie would touch with a ten-foot battle lance. But much back-end stuff has been made incredibly easy to use with user-friendly interfaces. A great example is the back-end of a WordPress blog. Any blog-owner can easily access the back-end area where he/she can create content and have it appear instantly on the blog.

Please, before some know-it all writes in to comment that these definitions are not complete or accurate, let me refer him to the disclaimer on the top of this page. This info is meant to help the business owner.