OK so you have bought a website so what next.  Hopefully the people that sold you this website also made arrangements to get you a domain name.  If not, you need to go to a domain registrar like Godaddy or Dynadot to get one.  There are several types of domain name extensions The Big 3: .com, .net and .org. Although there has recently been some discussion about possible moves to restrict the .org top domain to non-profits, as was originally intended, the current situation is that all 3 of these domain name extensions are accessible to anyone, without restrictions, and are widely recognized around the world.

Country-level top domains Prime examples include .fr (France), .jp (Japan - where .co.jp is also in widespread use) and .co.uk. These types of top-level domain name are generally under government control.  

We can talk about domains at length but we will just say this.  As far as we are concerned the one and only type of domain to buy is a .com.  They are by far the most valuable.  They are the original type of domain and will remain the top rated type of domains on the net for as long as we have an internet.

Next is hosting.  Again we truly hope that whoever sold you the website has offered to host it on their hosting service.  The people who built the site are usually better equipped to host it as they will best provide you the support if ever anything goes wrong.  

Let’s explain what hosting is.  A web host is a company that has computers that are hooked up to the internet 24/7. These computers are called servers and they are assigned IP numbers in order that they may be found by other computers hooked up to the internet. It is on these servers that all your web files are stored, be they HTML files (web pages), graphic files, CSS files, Java scripts or whatever.

There are different kinds of hosting services- free web hosting service, shared web hosting service, reseller web hosting, virtual dedicated server, dedicated hosting service, managed hosting service, collocation web hosting service, clustered hosting and grid hosting.

When choosing web hosting you should keep a few things in mind. Most website hosting services offer a stats package that you can study. Statistics are a vital part of tracking your marketing progress. Know how many GB of space, and bandwidth you need, and how many email accounts you will need. Also, it would help if you know whether you need just a basic hosting package, virtual dedicated hosting, or dedicated hosting. If you don’t know don’t worry, help is usually available depending on the provider to assist in choosing the right solution for your needs.

That’s it, once you have these three components; website, domain name and hosting you are ready to do business.  However, there are certainly way more things to learn in order to make you website successful.  Stay tuned for more guides as we will cover all the basics of owning a website and more importantly how to make it a success.