When you dive into the world of web design and development, especially for the first time, it can sometimes feel like you're trying to navigate using a foreign language. For small business owners looking to establish or enhance their online presence, the technical jargon can often feel overwhelming. Understanding web-related terms is important, though—not only to communicate better with web professionals, but also to help you make well-informed decisions about your digital strategy. Here’s a guide to some common web design and development terms that you may encounter.
1. Domain Name and Domain Registration
Your domain name is the web address where internet users can access your website, like www.example.com. It’s a crucial aspect of your brand’s online identity. Picking a straightforward, memorable domain name is vital for marketing and ensuring users can find your site easily.
Domain registration—sometimes referred to as domain hosting—refers to the fee you pay to a service provider (such as GoDaddy) for you to claim ownership of a particular domain name. Domain registration/hosting is often for one or two years and then has to be renewed. It’s a good idea to add “domain privacy” to your registration (so your contact information isn’t published globally). Many service providers also bundle domain registration with other services such as site hosting; however, this is not necessary and can sometimes lead to problems if their site hosting capabilities don’t match your needs.
2. Site Hosting
Every website needs a host, a computer server where your website’s data is stored and managed. When users want to visit your website, their browser (e.g., Chrome, Safari, Edge, Firefox) sends a request to the site’s address on the site server, and the server sends the required data back.
Understanding different hosting options—shared hosting, dedicated hosting, Virtual Private Server (VPS), etc.—matters in helping evaluate costs, performance, and scalability according to your needs. Companies that provide site hosting often provide other services or software that may improve website performance. Some of these add-ons, such as SSL Certificates, are essential. Others are optional and can slow down your site if they’re not set up correctly.
3. SSL Certificate (Secure Sockets Layer)
An SSL certificate is an important piece of security technology that creates an encrypted link between a web server and a browser. You know a website has an SSL Certificate if you see https:// at the beginning of the web address. A valid SSL Certificate ensures that all data that passes between the web server and browsers remains private and integral, which is vital for websites that handle sensitive information such as credit card numbers or personal data. In fact, many web browsers now treat a valid SSL certificate as mandatory and won't even load a site that doesn't have one!
4. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) refers to the practice of optimizing your website so it ranks higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). This can increase traffic to the site. SEO has several ingredients: using keywords and phrases on your site that are relevant to your business; improving your site's speed; ensuring your site is designed to be user friendly; correctly identifying the site as belonging to a local business (if appropriate); and more. It’s important to take the basics of SEO into account as you build and maintain your site.
5. Responsive Design
This is an important one! Responsive design refers to a design strategy that ensures a website looks good and works well on all devices, from large desktop monitors to small mobile phones. A responsive website automatically adjusts its layout and sizing to offer optimal viewing experiences across various devices. This can include scaling or moving images and text blocks, changing the size and placement of buttons, changing how menus are displayed, and other kinds of changes. Responsive design is vital for improving user experience and is an important factor in boosting SEO.
6. UX/UI Design
UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface) design are all about enhancing the satisfaction of your site's users. Usually this means site visitors, but it can also apply to the experience of content managers who are responsible for adding blogs, events, or other dynamic content to the site. UX focuses on the overall feel and flow of the website, ensuring that it meets the users' needs and is easy and pleasing to use. UI, on the other hand, deals with specific elements that users interact with, such as buttons, links, and menus. Both UX and UI are crucial inputs for a website that not only looks good but is works well and achieves what you need it to.
7. CMS (Content Management System)
A Content Management System (CMS) is a feature of website software that allows users to create, manage, and modify content without specialized technical knowledge. Essentially, it provides a user-friendly interface to build and maintain website pages—such as the interfaces found in WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal. Having a CMS, and understanding how it works, are important in deciding how much control you want to have over managing your website’s content. This is especially important if you want to create recurring content such as blog posts, case studies, or webinars.
8. Coding Elements (Languages)
Unless you are a web developer, you probably won't need to know a lot about the actual code that creates the structure, look and feel, and functionality of your website. However, you could run across the following terms in evaluating software or hosting platforms, design options, or development partners:
- HTML (HyperText Markup Language) — HTML is the backbone code of any web page. It’s a computer language used to create the structure of web pages. Think of it as the skeleton that supports all the visual and interactive elements on a website, like text, images, and videos.
- CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) — If HTML is the skeleton of a website, CSS is the skin and clothing. It’s used to style the appearance of the content that is structured by HTML. CSS controls everything from font sizes, colors, and spacing to how the layout behaves on different sized screens.
- JavaScript — JavaScript is a powerful scripting language that brings life to web pages. It enables interactivity, such as clickable buttons, responsive forms, and dynamic content updates without needing to reload the web page. It's what makes web pages not just readable and stylish but also interactive and engaging.
9. Backend and Frontend
These terms describe the two main parts of both a website and the web development process. The frontend is that part of the website that users interact with directly. It includes everything they see on their screens, which is coded using HTML, CSS, and sometimes JavaScript. The backend of a website is the part you don’t see; it’s responsible for storing and organizing bits of data and instructions and ensuring everything on the frontend works speedily and well. It may use other coding languages such as PHP, Ruby, or Python.
Put Your Knowledge To Good Use!
Empowering yourself with a basic understanding of these terms not only makes you more confident in dealing with web professionals, but it can also help you make better decisions about your digital presence. Armed with this knowledge, you can approach your web design or development project with greater clarity and purpose and give your business the best shot at making a powerful impact online.