Author website basics: all about hosting and domains

Websites

Jul 5

Apologies if this is the driest post you ever encounter, but I thought it might be helpful to clear up some of the mystique around websites and how they are set up. This is something I get asked a lot about when talking to clients!

So, what do you need to know about website hosting and domains?

There are at least two separate ‘services’ you have to pay for when you have a website. One is your domain name, the other is the hosting.

You might also choose to pay for a bespoke email address – such as yourname@yourwebsiteaddress.com – and this is another additional service that’s usually charged separately.

Your domain name

This is the most basic part of your website.

You will pay a domain provider for the right to ‘own’ a particular domain name on the internet.

A domain name, for the uninitiated, is basically the address for your website. So, for this site, my domain name is charlotteduckworthstudio.com.

I pay a yearly fee just for the right to own this domain name.

Usually registering a domain name is pretty cheap – I pay £19 per year (inc VAT) to Squarespace for my domain name, but there are domain providers who charge even less than this.

You can also have more than one domain name attached to a website.

So, for example, you might want to have both the .com and the .co.uk version of your domain.

These are two separate website addresses, so you would have to pay for both separately, even if they both redirect to the same site with the same content.

Plenty of people register domain names that they don’t ever use, just to safeguard them in case they need them in the future (I’ve actually done this for my daughter’s name #nerdalert!).

So just because you own a domain name, it doesn’t mean you actually have to attach a website to it.

If someone stumbled across a registered domain name without a website attached to it, they’d just see a generic message from whichever domain provider sold the domain, telling visitors that it has been registered (by someone – but not by who).

Your website host

So, you own your domain name, and now you want to upload an actual website to it. Great stuff!

Sadly, paying for the domain name alone does not allow you to do this!

Instead, you will have to pay a hosting fee, for a domain host to – literally – host the content of your website on their servers.

This is slightly more expensive than just buying the domain as this involves storage for your domain host (and often security for your content too).

If you want to have a Squarespace website, you must host your website with them. You aren’t able to pay, for example, GoDaddy for hosting and use Squarespace’s software for your website.

Even if your domain name is registered with GoDaddy.

Following me still?!

So if you’ve already registered a domain with something like GoDaddy but would like a Squarespace website, you just continue to pay GoDaddy for the domain name, and then pay Squarespace to host the content on the domain.

Thankfully it’s pretty easy to connect domains that are registered with other providers to your Squarespace site.

Squarespace plans start at £10 per month (although this is a bit of a tricksy marketing speak which bugs me, as it’s only £10 per month if you pay the fee annually. If you pay monthly, it’s £13 per month).

For this fee, Squarespace will host as much content as you need on your website – there’s no limit to the number of pages you can have, or how big your website can get size-wise (eg if you have a LOT of images, your website can be pretty hefty in size, but Squarespace don’t charge you more for this extra storage).

They also guarantee your site’s security, meaning it can never be hacked, and offer an amazing 24/7 support team that can help you out if you ever get stuck with anything on your site (even design queries!).

This is why I really love Squarespace – it’s a full-service offering and provides amazing value for money.

What about domain names with Squarespace?

You can also buy your domain name through Squarespace (which I do). You don’t have to use another provider like GoDaddy, or 123 reg.

Some people prefer to use a separate provider as it’s usually slightly cheaper, while others think the convenience of having everything managed by one company makes it worth paying a few pounds a year more (I am one of these people!).

Plus when you first sign up to Squarespace, you get your first year’s domain name for free.

Many of my clients have already registered their domains with other domain providers because they’ve had previous websites on Wordpress etc, and I always say that it’s fine to keep the domain with these original providers and just connect it to their new Squarespace hosting account.

As I said before, it’s easy peasy and Squarespace integrates really well with all domain providers.

You can also transfer your domain name across to Squarespace from your original domain provider if you like, although this is usually not worth the hassle.

And what about email?

Last but not least – lots of my clients also want a bespoke email address attached to their domain.

This is really important for email newsletters. If you use a free email address such as yourname@gmail.com to send your newsletters, you run the risk of these emails going into spam.

Newsletters that come from a verified business domain such as you@yourwebsite.com are much less likely to be caught in spam filters.

So I always recommend setting up a professional email address to sit alongside your website, especially if email marketing is a priority for you.

Thankfully if you use Squarespace for your website, you can take advantage of their integration with Google’s Gsuite.

For around £60 per year, you can set up a personalised email address linked to your domain, and you also get a calendar and Google Drive attached to the email address, which is really useful.

This can also all be done through Squarespace! Again, it’s really easy to set up and you can find out more about how to do this here.

Are you asleep yet?

Hope that clears up any confusion you might have on this very dull but very necessary technical stuff! But of course, please do pop any questions below, or tweet me @charduck if you’d like more advice!