A domain name is your address in hyperspace. It uniquely identifies your website from all others, much like your home address.

That's entirely up to you, although certain suffixes are reserved such as .gov (UK Government), .edu (Educational establishments), etc. Many companies will choose multiple domain types, just to be sure that they are not missed by potential customers. Note that your are charged for each domain you register.

You can choose to do it yourself by dealing direct with one of the registration agencies, or you can let WestXdesign do it for you.

That very much depends upon who you buy it from. There is a fixed element in every domain registration that is charged by the "registrars"; Nominet in the UK and Internic in the USA (.com's are more expensive as they are registered in the USA). The variable element of the charge is only set by how much profit the vendor wishes to make (or tries to get away with!).

Anything you like as long as:

• it hasn't already been registered (although many are available at auction)
• it is between three and 127 characters long
• it doesn't start with a number

When you have a web site it must be put on a computer somewhere that is permanently attached to the World Wide Web, otherwise it's not going to do much for your business as no-one will see it! Hosting, or Web Hosting, is the term used to describe this "somewhere". It is not usually cost-effective for a small business to host its own website and so they turn to companies who offer web hosting facilities.