What's the difference/advantage of buying just a domain name versus hosting services?

I am asking this question because I am entertaining the idea to start a consulting business and want to have a website that gives information about my services. Thank you very much

The domain name is just the address. Hosting is like the land where you actually build the house. Often the fees are separate.

If you're building your own site with software, you can build a basic site (up to 10 MB of space, which is fine for something small) with one fee for address and hosting at www.nameroute.com ($15 for both fees for one year).

You can also use a site builder system that will charge you some amount per month for hosting PLUS everything you need to build the site. Sometimes these include the domain name. My favorite site builder is www.sitekreator.com

There are plenty of other builders out there, though. Do a web search. I've tried out every system I could find, though, and Site Kreator gives the best bang for the buck.

SteveMc answered your questions, though I'll just add some more.

If you only signed up for hosting services to build your website (or "put your consulting office online"), your hosting provider will give you a temporary web address like "yourhost.com/username". Obviously you don't want people to go to your site that way, so that's where a domain name comes in.

When you eventually register your desired domain name and website hosting, the latter will eventually give you instructions how to "tie" the 2 of them together at your domain provider. Your domain provider has online instructions (or ask them directly if need be) how to do it on their site.