Web Design Southampton - Very Sensible web design

Jargon Buster

Sometimes the path to a great web site is strewn with lots of technical jargon. Look here for what it means.

Internet: The Internet (the Net) is a worldwide network of computers with about 500 million users and rising! With the Internet, you can virtually connect between any computers anywhere in the world.
You can access it 24 hours a day, seven days a week for very little cost. By carrying billions of web sites, it is transforming the way we communicate and do business and more and more users and small traders are buying and selling online daily.
World Wide Web: The World Wide Web is a way of accessing information, as web pages and in other ways, using the medium of the Internet.
The world Wide Web (the Web) allows us to create rich and effective information resources such as web sites. Think of the Internet as a pipe and the World Wide Web and other information resources as water running through it.
Domain Name: A domain name is the name that your web site is known by (e.g. www.verysensible.co.uk). It's usually a good idea to choose a domain that's easy to remember. You can either choose a name for your company, then look for a domain that matches it, or better, choose a name for which you can get a domain.
Useful tip: Make sure your intended company name isn't registered by another company (in the UK) at Companies House. If it is, that company may have prior claim to the domain, and you're in for some legal shenannigans. You can use their WebCheck page to find out. If you're an international company you'll have to go further afield to do your checks. The same could apply to a logo or trademark you may wish to use. Very Sensible offer a checking service for your peace of mind. Please contact us for more details.
Domain name registration: To get your own domain name, you have to register and pay for it, then have it hosted on a server (computer) somewhere.
Registration is relatively cheap, with .co.uk domains typically being about £1.99 a year (minimum of two years) and .com about £8.99 for two years. Go to 1and1 Internet to find out more. If you're thinking about having a web site built, please contact us and we'll do our best to help you out.
Hosting: A hosting company takes your domain name and puts it on their server (computer) to make it available on the world wide web.
When a web design company (like ours) creates your site, the world can then find it using a browser. Very Sensible recommend using 1and1 Internet as your hosting company. We've used them for a while and they've been excellent.
E-Commerce: E-commerce is all about using the Internet to do business better and faster. It's about giving customers controlled access to your computer systems and letting people serve themselves any time of the day and night, anywhere in the world. It's about committing your company to a serious online effort and integrating your Web site with the heart of your business. If you do that, you will see results!
One cost-effective and easy-to-use online e-commerce application is PayPal. Contact us to find out more.
Content Management System (CMS): A content management system allows you to create and edit as many pages as you like using pre-designed templates.
Very Sensible uses Macromedia (now Adobe) Contribute as a cost-effective CMS tool. It's cheap and has lots of great features you'd find in expensive high-end CMS solutions. Check out the Contribute web site.
For larger sites, we can quote you on a database-driven CMS solution. Contact us to find out more.
Search engine: A search engine for your site means visitors can find any content easily.
We can offer a very economical and easy to use search engine specially built right into your site. Visitors can find your content easily, whatever you add using your CMS. Contact us to find out more.
Browser: A piece of software (such as Microsoft Internet explorer) which allows you to see web pages.
Link (or hyperlink): A link is a piece of usually highlighted text or an image which when clicked with a mouse directs your browser to another piece of information.
Menu: A list of links on each page which allows you to navigate your site.
Navigation: By using a menu of links, navigation is how you can move from page to page on your site.
Gif Image: A file type which is used generally for images with flat colour areas. It's also used for animated images.
Jpg Image: A file type which is used generally for photographic images.
Flash content: A rich multimedia file type which can be discrete and form sections of a web page, or can be the basis of complete highly interactive and innovative web sites.