What the heck is a website anyway?
It's a place that people go to on the web where they can find out information and do things.
Your Domain is not your castle/office, it's your coat of arms
Imagine your domain name is : joeswebsiteplace.com
The domain isn't really your website. It's like a fictitious company name. Just because you have the name doesn't mean the business is located anywhere in particular or even if it's real! When you buy a domain name, it's sometimes "parked" somewhere until you figure out where you want it to lead.
Hosting is your Digital Office
Hosting is like a real world office space. It has an address which is something like somehostingservice.com. Most people lease office website space, like a digital Suite A. There will be actual computers (servers : they "serve" your site to visitors) where your site is kept.
Suite A would be a directory listing on their server/building. Office spaces vary in quality, features and price just like in the real world.
So, when you "point" your domain name to the office space, it's like telling the post office or the Yellow Pages that your business is now located at that address. People should go there to find you. You can even get multiple names and send them to the same office.
Finding your office
Here, people go to the main address and then to your office. The doorman (host) looks your office up in the directory and sends people to the correct floor. All this happens without people realizing the building is in fact owned by someone else. They usually don't care. They just want to find what they're looking for.
Later you could move your business. This is easier or harder depending on your leasing agreement and whether much of the furniture and features are theirs or yours.
Who moved my mailbox?
For your email, you can either choose to have it directly delivered to your "office" or go to a Post Office Box (like hotmail or gmail) to check it and send mail.
Direct Sales
Selling things is more complicated. We'll leave that for further discussion some other time. I'm trying to keep the analogy simple.
