As a business owner, you probably have purchased a domain for your company and if you haven’t, you will probably purchase one soon. This domain serves many purposes, but the primary functions are for websites and email accounts.
Pro tip: You want to make sure you own your domain. Don’t let an agency convince you otherwise. An agency should never require you to allow them ownership of your domain. Some agencies will purchase your domain to get your website started, but we recommend that you should require them to transfer it immediately to your business. The reason being is if you choose to leave that agency or if the agency goes out of business without notice, you will run into challenges relating to your website. You could lose your entire domain, your email address, and even lose branding of your own company.
Understanding Website and Email Hosting
When it comes to choosing the right host to manage your website and emails, you probably find yourself going down the internet rabbit hole about the best hosts and the technical things they offer for hosting with them. These articles are clearly designed for experts, right? Well, let us explain!
When you set out to create a new website, you will first need to name it. A website name is also known as the domain. The domain is what people will type into the URL field in their browser to go directly to your website: www.yourdomain.com .
Once you’ve named your site and it’s created, you need a place to put it so it can appear on the internet. The place you put it is called a web host. More specifically, a web host provider is a service that will provide everything your website needs to be viewed on the internet.
How Does Website Hosting Work?
Reaching Your Website: Your domain connects to an IP address provided by your web host. A user can reach your website in many ways; your domain’s DNS makes sure your visitors are always able to find you on the web.
Your website host can easily be changed by migrating your website files to a new host and updating your domain’s DNS settings to the new host’s IP address.
Choosing a dedicated website host is very important, as it will affect your page speed. You want to make sure the hosting plan you choose offers a free SSL certificate, has a CDN (content delivery network which will help increase your page speed) as well as amazing support when you need technical assistance.
How Does Email Hosting Work?
When a user sends an email, it is routed to your email host by your domain’s DNS settings. This allows you to have any email hosting you wish, even if it’s with a provider that is different from your web hosting.
Setting up your email host is something that you only want to do one time as changing providers can be a complicated process.
While some web hosting companies provide both web and email hosting, having a dedicated email hot allows you to have more freedom and control over your email service. With a dedicated email host, you can easily switch your web hosting provider, or even your domain name, and still have access to all of your emails.
