Let's consider the life cycle of a house for a moment. The cycle begins with the house in the construction phase. Once the home is ready to be lived in, the cycle shifts from construction to the maintenance phase. Finally, after the home has been in use for a while it's time to modernize and upgrade old fixtures and design elements.

The life cycle of a website works in the exact same way.

When it comes to creating a website, regardless of how involved you are in the actual building of the website, it's important to know what your different options are, what they mean for your website ownership experience, and how to pick what will work best for YOU. Plus, it's always handy to understand some of the industry lingo so you can communicate more easily with your friendly neighborhood web developer.

Before we can talk about the ways to build a website, I think it's important to first introduce and clarify the concept of web hosting. If you're already familiar you can jump to the next section.