What a website actually is and what it is made of

A website is a collection of pages that live at an address (the domain), are stored on a server (hosting) and are displayed by a browser. Every website has four layers: the domain name, the hosting, the code that builds the pages and the content people actually read.

There are three big families of websites: presentation sites for companies and freelancers, online stores that sell products, and web applications that do something interactive. Each has different costs and different goals.

If you are evaluating a website for your business, start from the goal: leads, sales or credibility. The structure, budget and technology follow from that. You can see transparent prices for each type on our pricing guide.