The domain is the address people type into a browser, for example bown.at. Technically it is an entry in a worldwide directory that translates the name into the number of the server where your site is stored.
Domain and server are separate things. You can move your site to other hosting and keep the same domain, and visitors will not notice anything. The ending also carries a meaning: .at belongs to Austria, .eu to the European Union, and .com is open to businesses anywhere.
Register the domain in the name of your own business, not in the name of an agency or a freelancer who works for you. The owner of the domain decides where it points, and that should be you. An SSL certificate is then issued for that domain so the connection to it is encrypted.
Websites & shops
What a website costs depends mainly on scope, design, content and features such as a shop or booking. At bown a website starts from €499 excl. VAT, and running it with hosting and maintenance from €39 per month excl. VAT.
Hosting & servers
Moving domain and email works without an outage if you first record every DNS entry, prepare mailboxes at the new provider, only then switch over, and cancel the old contract only once everything demonstrably works.
Marketing & advertising
A usable marketing budget starts with a goal and then separates three items from each other, namely production, ongoing support and the money for the advertising platform.
Websites & shops
A website for a small business has to explain within a few seconds what you offer, work on a phone and make an enquiry possible without detours.
Hosting & servers
Your website is a set of files on a server in a data center, your domain is the address that sends visitors there, and email runs as a separate service alongside it.
Prefer not to do this yourself? bown offers a free 30-minute intro call to talk through your project.