← How to Start a Website
Glossary: How to Start a Website
Every key term from the course, in plain English. Bookmark this page — you'll come back to it.
- Domain
- Your website's address on the internet, like yourbusiness.com. You rent it yearly from a registrar and can keep it forever as long as you renew.
- Hosting
- The computer (server) where your website's files live. When someone visits your domain, hosting serves them your pages.
- Registrar
- The company you buy your domain from. Keep your domain in your own account — never let someone else own it.
- DNS
- The system that connects your domain name to your hosting. Changing DNS settings is how you point a domain at a new host.
- SSL / HTTPS
- The security layer that encrypts data between your site and visitors. Browsers warn users away from sites without it — most hosts include it free now.
- Call to action (CTA)
- The one thing you want a visitor to do: call, book, buy, sign up. Every page should have exactly one primary CTA.
- Hero section
- The top of your homepage — headline, supporting sentence, and main button. Visitors decide in about five seconds whether to stay.
- Page map
- A sketch of every page your site will have and what each one does. Draw it before you build anything.
- Responsive design
- A site that rearranges itself to fit any screen — phone, tablet, desktop. Non-negotiable: most visitors are on phones.
- Above the fold
- The part of the page visible without scrolling. Your headline, CTA, and phone number belong here.
- Bounce rate
- The percentage of visitors who leave after viewing one page. High bounce usually means the page didn't match what they expected.
- Analytics
- Software that tells you what visitors actually do on your site — where they come from, what they click, where they leave.
- Sitemap
- A file listing all your pages, submitted to Google so it can find and index everything.
- Backup
- A copy of your entire site stored somewhere safe. If anything breaks, a backup is the difference between an hour of work and starting over.
- Uptime
- The percentage of time your site is online and working. Good hosting delivers 99.9% or better.