A website is a collection of files and/or folders that when requested using a domain name via a web browser such as Internet Explorer, Edge, Chrome or Firefox, will be delivered and displayed in the users web browser, either on their own PC or on their mobile device such as a tablet or a mobile phone.

Websites typically use Domain Names which act like signposts to these files/folders so that when a user types in www.bluebit.co.uk for example, the signposts point the browser to the right location where these files/folders are stored. This location is typically on a web server providing web hosting which is a computer or computers running 24/7/365, waiting for requests for these files.

A website can be made up of a single web page or many web pages, depending on what content needs to be displayed. Each page may consist of one HTML file with one or more supporting assets such as images, styling instructions (CSS) and more complex items such as automated slideshows (Javascript).

A website can be responsive. This means that the developer has thought about how the website will look not only on a Windows PC or Apple Mac screen, but also on a mobile device in portrait or landscape mode. This is incredibly important as more than 50% of all surfing and decision making is now carried out on mobile devices.

The simplest web page may only contain HTML instructions with no images, Javascript or CSS but it would look pretty boring, hence why images, Javascript and CSS are used to add a layer of design over the top of the key information.

Many websites run within whats called a CMS or Content Management System and one of the most popular CMS is WordPress. Strictly speaking WordPress is a blogging engine, but has been adopted by the web community, expanded and modified to make it a very capable web site editing tool that allows owners with little knowledge of HTML, Javascript and CSS to run and modify their own websites.

WordPress websites are still a series of files and folders, images, CSS and Javascript, but there’s some clever magic that we won’t go into here that makes it possible for a non web developer to modify content easily.