Website Essentials: Web Terms Everyone Should Know
Or, how a website is like building a house
My dear writer,
My husband and I just bought our first house. It took us a relentless few months to get here but we are delighted to call something our home. The walls are lined with painters tape and I’ve already created a spreadsheet for all of our future projects!
But why am I talking about houses? A house is the perfect metaphor to kick off this series on Website Essentials. Just like stepping into someone’s home and seeing what art hangs on their living room walls, your author website should be a reflection of who you are. Your style and sense of humor should be on full display so that readers can connect with you and decide they want to buy your books.
Before I dig into this series, however, I want to make sure that you feel comfortable with the terms I will be using. I’ve put together this list of key website terms using our house metaphor to help illustrate these concepts. This is a good one to bookmark for future reference!
Domain
Your Street Address
Your domain is the unique name of your website. It is your main URL, or the web address you type into an internet browser to navigate to your site (Ex: google.com).
If we compare building websites to building houses, think of the domain name as the street address of your new website. You tell your street address to your friends so they can plug it into their GPS to navigate to your house. For example, every detective fiction reader knows that Sherlock Holmes lives at 221B Baker Street.
Building a website from scratch will usually require you to purchase a domain name. This can be done through a domain registrar like GoDaddy or Namecheap, which are companies that sell domain names that aren’t currently owned or occupied.
Important: unlike buying a house, purchasing a domain name does not mean that you have a complete website now. You’ve only claimed the name of the website. It’s still up to you to build it.
Is everyone required to buy a domain name for their website? No. You may choose to build your website within an existing framework (which we’ll talk about later). Some of the larger, more established frameworks will provide you with a subdomain for your site. If a domain is the street address of a house, then the subdomain is like an apartment or a condo unit. Everyone in the apartment building has the same street address (the main domain) but you have a distinguishing name to identify your unit from the other tenants. Currently at Literary IT, I have a subdomain provided to me by Substack. The URL for my newsletter is literaryit.substack.com. So the main domain is substack.com, and what comes before that is my subdomain name.
Purchasing your own domain name means that you’re responsible for the whole property. You are the landowners of the internet. Signing up for a subdomain in an existing framework means you don’t have to worry as much about building maintenance, or website maintenance in this case. Consider how much work you want to take on for yourself. There are pros and cons to both sides.
IP Address
Your Very Technical Street Address - Like a Lot or Parcel Number
Even if you are the proud new owner of a purchased domain name, your author website is actually sitting on a string of numbers called your IP Address, or Internet Protocol address. Your website has a unique IP and it uses this number to communicate with other network devices, such as your computer or your mobile phone, when someone types in the name of your website.
Think of this as a lot number or parcel number. It’s the government-official number of your property. No one is going to use that number to plug into their GPS to locate your home, but you might need this number for official paperwork, DNS management, or other technical support.
An IP address is a clunky number. It definitely doesn’t roll off the tongue when talking about your new website with your writing group. To make matters worse, sometimes that IP address will change.
That’s where DNS Management comes in.
If you’re building your own website, you will probably hear the term DNS (Domain Name System) at some point. It is a system that links or converts your IP address to your domain name, making it into something readable. You can typically access your DNS tools from your domain registrar. If you ever change your domain name in the future, DNS is where you can create redirects and make that switch. You can even spin off your own subdomains, if you wish.
When using a subdomain from a larger platform like Substack, you won’t see any of this behind-the-scenes that I’m describing. You’re just a happy tenant who doesn’t need to worry about the details. That is one of the perks of a framework site.
Framework or CMS (Content Management System)
The Foundation/Framework of Your House
I keep saying the word framework, so let’s discuss this in more detail. Most people today do not build websites from scratch. Are you sighing in relief yet? Good. I’m not expecting you to become a software developer. We are not reinventing the wheel.
Today, most websites are built off pre-existing frameworks. Among the most popular are WordPress, Squarespace, and Wix. In fact, about 43% of all websites across the internet were using WordPress alone in 2022. The CMS (Content Management System) you choose will help shape how your website is structured, how you input your content, and much more.
Different frameworks cater towards the amount of control you have over your website. Some are designed to keep you out of the technical details, while others depend some level of technical skill.
For example, spinning up your own WordPress site requires more technical skill to set up but ultimately provides a lot of flexibility for the user. You will need to purchase your own domain and control more of the details. This is the homeowner’s route–maybe even the home builder’s route.
Other frameworks like Squarespace and Wix are friendlier to start up but take a more templated approach. You won’t have as much control, but maybe you don’t need it. You might be very happy with a simple cookie-cutter home that someone already designed. All you need to do is move in.
Content
Your Furniture
We can’t talk about websites without talking about content. Isn’t that what we’re here for? We are writers!
I think we can all agree that rattling around in an empty home is creepy. It echoes, there are large gaps of white space, and it can be disorienting. You need to fill your website with content that makes your guests feel welcome and intrigued. Content can mean a lot of things here: it could be cover photos and synopses of your books, it could be an author bio page, it could be a blog where you talk about your writing process.
Tell us more about you by what furniture you place inside. Make this your home.
Here at Literary IT, I’m not telling you how to write. It doesn’t matter if your furniture is antique or purchased at IKEA. I want to give you the technology tools for your toolbox so that you can build the best house around your writing.
Theme
The Interior Design: The paint, the trim, the window treatments…
Many CMS frameworks allow you to shop for themes, which are pre-built templates to style your new website. Think of this as the interior design of your house. It’s not the furniture—that’s your content—but it’s how your website appears to visitors. What color are the walls? Do you want a website that’s all clean lines and minimalist fonts? Do you want blood-soaked halls like in The Shining for your murder mystery novel? Or perhaps something bright and colorful for your middle-grade series?
Themes can also determine the flow, or the feng shui, of the house. You might want a robust menu with lots of subpages, or you might want a single-page website. Is the content crammed together or is everything spaced out neatly with a lot of white space?
The world is your oyster when it comes to theme shopping but beware: sometimes you get what you pay for. I’ll be sharing some tips later in this series to save you a headache or two.
Plugins
The Appliances
Similar to theme shopping, many CMS frameworks also offer the ability to add plugins to your website. A plugin is a pre-built chunk of code that serves a particular function or adds a new capability to your website that you didn’t have before. In your new house, doing chores could feel difficult with no appliances. How can you store your food in your new home? You need to buy and install a refrigerator. Tired of washing dishes by hand? Buy a dishwasher so you can wash dishes in bulk.
The same concept applies to plugins. There are some plugins that I would deem essential to setting up an author website, while others provide more convenience and can automate certain processes. For example, how can you set up a way for your website guests to contact you? Plugins such as Gravity Forms or Contact Form 7 let you add a contact form on your site without calling a developer. Do you want a fancy way to display your photography? Maybe a lightbox plugin can improve the look and feel of your website photo gallery. Plugins can also connect your website to other external web tools you’re using like Mailchimp or Google Analytics.
Just like appliances, there is a range of quality when it comes to plugins. Sometimes the free ones don’t work well and so you pay a premium to get the good ones.
Web Hosting
Your Neighborhood HOA
We’ve talked a lot about your author house, but we haven’t addressed where your website exists within the grand cybernetic landscape of the Internet. That’s where web hosting comes in.
If you’re building your own website, you will need to procure a web host, or hosting provider, to host your site. A hosting provider is a company that sells server space in order for your website to be accessible across the Internet. Think of the web host as the neighborhood of your author website. It’s no good owning a domain or selecting a CMS if no one can navigate to you.
There are a range of hosting companies out there, and we’ll discuss in more detail in the coming months how to select which web host is best for you. You can pay your hosting provider on a monthly or annual basis for the amount of server space your website utilizes. It’s not so different from a neighborhood Homeowners Association fee, where you get the privilege of paying dues to live in a certain area.
With most hosting providers, you have the option of choosing between shared or dedicated hosting. Shared hosting means that your website is running on the same server as many other websites. The site speed and performance of your website can be impacted if you’re on a shared server with a lot of other users. Shared hosting is the New York City of web neighborhoods where everyone’s on top of each other and maybe there’s a subway delay due to a shortage of train operators.
The higher tier of hosting is called dedicated hosting, which means that your website is running on its own server. This is the mansion on top of the hill like in Edward Scissorhands. For most writers out there, it’s not necessary to purchase dedicated hosting unless you expect huge amounts of web traffic.
Luckily, you don’t always have to source your own web host. Sometimes your domain register can provide hosting and some CMS platforms include hosting as part of their package. Subdomains off larger sites like Substack also won’t require you to purchase hosting, since the main company is paying for that on your behalf.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed already, my dear writer, do not despair. I will cover each of these topics in more detail in the months to come.
I’d love to know if there’s something you are struggling with right now on your author website. Leave me a note and I will do my best to fit it into this series!
- - - Your Literary IT Support
Next Up
Next month I’m talking about all things domain-related in our series, Website Essentials. Don’t miss out on any new content and subscribe to Literary IT today to get the next post sent right to your Inbox.