Website Ownership Simplified: Key Elements to Know
Following on from a previous post about avoiding website developer disputes, I heard back from a few business owners that still had questions.
- They didn't understand whether they should buy the domain or the developer should
- They didn't understand whether they needed hosting or the one that developer was offering
- What is a CMS I got asked
I had these same questions myself, I get it.
This stuff isn't really explained well either
A simple diagram
I thought I'd start with a simple diagram:
The reason I highlighted Cart & Payment Gateway in purple is because not every website needs it. You'll need a shopping cart if you're an e-Commerce business. You'll need a Payment Gateway to collect payments. Before developers would go through all this technical and approval process to get it on your website, now there are 1 click payment links that make life easier.
Example services and typical investment
I wanted to make it feel familiar so I created this table which shows some example services and the investment required.
What to do if you want to get started
The first thing to do is to buy your domain. There are a lot of services that you can register your domain with, I typically use one of the ones in the table above.
Now you don't actually need to get anything else before you get your website built as most likely if you're reading this, you're going to get a developer to build it.
There are literally so many website builders with CMSs that it wouldn't even make sense but again the main ones are listed in the table above. ⚠️ even though Wordpress powers most of the websites on the internet in that they have the biggest customer base, I find to achieve the finished look most want, it requires a developer. Or a really good theme there's easy to use.
Want a beautiful website built in Wordpress or Webflow?
