We have been making websites for over 20 years and customers trust us to make websites for them. But occasionally we get asked how does a website work or more specifically what does it take to create a website – so he is our explainer.

Domains are basically website addresses – same as the postcode for your home –  it’s an easy to remember way of finding your website. Its important to remember that domain names are JUST an address – nothing else. It is a name usually starting off with www that has a middle and and end separated by full stops eg www.jascom.ie This address points to a webserver where your actually website exists. Its a sign post and away of visitor traffic to find your website.

Important – this is a recurring service that you need to pay for. So if you dont renew on or before the renewal date then your website AND your emails will go down.

Jascom Tip – We always send renewals 30 days in advance to remind you of this renewal because if you don’t renew or or before the renewal date your website will go down. Domain name registration is more important to People than Google as such. The name of a domain is only 1 of 200 factors that will rank your website so don’t get too hung up on whether the product or service you offer is in the domain name eg RyanAir.com doesn’t have the phrase “cheap flights”.

Technically known as Web & Email Hosting this the term for the service that allows your website to be “hosted” on an web server so that it can be displayed. Think of as space (same as on your computer) where text and images are stored so they can be displayed as web pages. Email is normally included in this hosting so that you can setup email addresses like info@jascom.ie

Important – this is a recurring service that you need to pay for. So if you dont renew on or before the renewal date then your website AND your emails will go down.

Jascom Tip – We always send renewals 30 days in advance to remind you of this renewal. You can have a Basic 5GB plan or an Advanced 10GB plans for busier websites with more space and email addresses. You can always upgrade your hosting but best to do some housekeeping every few months to removed older files, emails, customer  orders or anything else that might be taking up space unnecessarily.

WordPress is the software that runs your website. It is made up of WordPress Core, Theme and Plugins. The software is free and needs to be installed on your Hosting server – usually by your Website Designer.  WordPress is known as a CMS (Content Management System) which allows people to add content like Pages, Images and Video to their website without knowing how to write code. It is the most popular website software on the market and runs about 40% off all websites.

Important – WordPress / Themes / Plugins need to be undated regularly as newer versions are released – same way as your computer gets updates. This improves the performance on the website and prevents it from being hacked.

Jascom Tip – Once WordPress is installed we provide a training manual on how to update the website so customers can add content themselves. But where a customer requires an website enhancement like a Form, Chatbot, Social Media Integration or Ecommerce Shop we can provide a quote.

Website Maintenance is where WordPress Updates, Security Monitoring and Backups are provided as a “package”. This paid service means that website owners can be reassured that there website has the latest code to improver performance and security.

Important – Content updates can be performed by anyone who has the login details for your website. But backend maintenance updates for Themes or Plugins should be done by an experienced professional as occasionally these updates can crash your website.

Jascom Tip – We offer a maintenance contract to update WordPress for you so you wont have to get skilled in doing the updates and if anything goes wrong with the updates we can provide backups. We also provide security monitoring as part of the maintenance contract.

Search Engine Optimisation is techniques employed to ensure that your website ranks well in Google. They are a combination of page structure, links, content, website speed and up to 200 other factors which help your website to rank better than other sites.

Important – Your website is not automatically SEO’ed as such. Once launched its something you need to revisit again and again over time to see how your website is performing. You need to follow the best practices which you can find online or with the help of a professional.

Jascom Tip – We perform a Basic SEO Optimisation on every website we create so that the best practices for structure, indexing and performance are completed correctly for launch. We provide a guide to our customer on how to update the website.