It’s Business Time…

Right, you’ve got your super-snazzy new website. It’s ready to go, it follows all of the latest design trends, it’s optimised for mobile, you’re ready to go…but now what? “How does my website actually get onto the internet?” is a question I’m often asked and luckily this is a concept that’s not too hard to explain.

At Platform81 we wait until our clients are delighted by their new site; the design matches the mock-ups provided, everything’s working, there’s no broken links, the copy is spot on and we’re ready to sign off on the project. So what next? We now need to get the files (code, images and maybe a database) that make up your new site onto the internet. For this we need a web hosting company.

A web hosting company is characterised by having a very fast network of high-powered computers (called web servers) which run software that interprets the code in a website’s files.

When we’re ready to go live we transfer all the website files onto a web server and into an account that’s made specifically for your website.

When someone types your web address (such as www.platform81.com) into their browser, that request for information is routed through the Internet heading for the web server holding your website files. Think of your web address as a PO Box number giving internet postmen the details of where to deliver their packets of data. The web page requested is then transferred back to the user’s computer. You have your first visitor!

So pull up those business socks, that’s right your website is now live…it’s business time!