How To Upload Websites To Your Hosting Provider

One thing I think many of us with a background in technology or a bit of development experience take for granted is that everyone understands how to FTP (File Transfer Protocol) or upload files to web hosting providers. For many of use we have been doing this for years and it is something we do not even think twice about. So, before I go any further, I apologize up front for this basic tutorial, but as more domain investors look to do some level of development this is an important skill for people to have.

After launching the beta of EzDevelop.com I received questions from 3 different people on how to upload files to a web server. I was shocked at first then realized not everyone that is a domainer has a technical background. Although the next version of what we are releasing will have an option to use our hosting I thought it may be a good idea  to do a how-to for those that are both using our services or, really anyone that just simply wants to know how to upload their site to a web server using FTP.

So, for all you domainers our there with no tech background, here is a quick step by step. It may not be all inclusive but it should help point you in the right direction:

1) Download an FTP program - The program I use is FileZilla, you can download it by clicking here.

2) Install FileZilla. It is a very easy point and click installation, just download and then double click the file that you have downloaded.

3) At this point it is assumed that you have created the account on your hosting provider to upload the files too. You will need the username and password that you configured for this account. In many cases you create the account through cpanel/WHM.

4) Since it is likley that you will want to upload more than one file make sure all the files for the website you are uploading are in one directory, this way you can upload all at one time without having to upload each file one by one. Here is an example:

5) Now open FileZilla by clicking on its icon on your desktop. In my case I see this after doing so:

6) Now you will want to login to your server using FTP with FileZilla, to do this you will type the domain name into the host field below the menu bar at the top of the FileZilla app, you will then type the username and password into the fields allocated for those, this is the username and password that you would of created in your hosting account (i.e. on HostGator.com or another). After filling these fields in press the quick connect button to connect to your server using FTP. NOTE: You will of needed to change the DNS on your domain name to point to the web server before doing the above steps.

7) An example of what you may see after connecting through FTP is shown below:

After doing this you will want to switch to your public_html directory on the server, in my example you will see it in the directory listing box for the remote site. To switch to that directory on the remote server I double click on public_html and it then gives me a listing of the files in that directory.

9) You will now want to upload your website to the public_html directory. To do this I will simply drag and drop the files from the folder that I opened earlier with my web site files in it and then highlight them by first clicking on the top folder or file and then moving my cursor over the bottom file in the list and pressing my left mouse button (assuming you are using Windows and not a MAC).

Here is an example of the files being selected:

10) After selecting them you will want to drag them either to the bottom box with files listed in FileZilla or to the public_html directory in the top box of directory listings on the remote site side of the FileZilla app window (you can see the sides of FileZilla are defined as local site or remote site, left side is local site, right side is remote site).

That is it, your site is now ready to go, BUT, one thing I should note, it is my preference to do it this way but for many it may be even easier to do the following, since you can also list your files that you want to transfer on the local site side of FileZilla and then select them all and then hit the right mouse button and hit the upload button and it will just the same as what I did before by selecting them in a different window. For many this is probably the easier way but for various reasons I use the drag and drop method.

Although I am sure there may still be some questions, this should help at least point many people new to file transfers and just getting into domain develop in the right direction. Sorry for boring the tech folks in the crowd.

WPTouch iPhone Theme Plus A Few Other Wordpress Plugin Tweaks

In anticipation of installing my custom blog theme that is being worked on literally as I type I have been working to tweak some of the plug-ins and doing some other fine tuning to the blog. You may notice some changes over the next couple days as I get close to making the full change. In the mean time I thought I would point out a few things that maybe useful to you as you work on your own Wordpress blog, whether it be for your personal blog or a site you have developed for one of your domains.

Post Excerpts - One thing I am contemplating is turning on post excerpts instead of showing the full post on the front page of the blog, there are a couple reasons for doing this, one is it allows more posts to be shown on the front page as people browse down the list but the negative is that pictures and formatting is lost. There are ways to do this manually but that can be a bit of a pain. If you are looking for more info on setting up post excerpts check out ProBlogDesign.com

Sexy Bookmarks - I had seen this plug-in used on several other blogs and also noticed it on ChefPatrick.com as one of Patrick's plugin choices. I had been using Add To Any as my social bookmarking plugin but Sexy Bookmarks looks so much better, I hate to say it but Web 2.0ish... You can find more details on the plugin at SexyBookmarks.net. You can see how it looks by hovering your mouse over the chiclets at the bottom of this post.

WPTouch iPhone Theme - OK, and now for my favorite new plug-in. As a self-proclaimed gadget geek and long time iPhone fanboy I have been slacking in my move to offering a mobile interface to my own blog. Funny how that usually works though. Well, now you can check out my blog from your iPhone and get an easy to use and very readable mobile interface. I have noticed that a good bit of the traffic to this site comes from iPhones and other mobile devices, hopefully this helps the usability a bit.  The plug-in is very configurable, you can get more information on this plug-in at the BraveNewCode.com site.

So far, from my brief usage of it, I would highly recommend using the WPTouch plug-in if you are looking for a slick looking mobile interface for your Wordpress site. I am going to be implementing it on a few tonight.

EzDevelop.com Wants Beta Testers

Sometime during the next week EzDevelop.com will be launched to a group of beta testers. Although I already have several lined up I wanted to give some others a chance to test a tool we have been working on that allows us to save time, money and effort when launching new sites.

I will randomly select 10 people on top of the 5 I have already spoke too. If you are interested please go to EzDevelop.com and sign up, I would prefer people with interest in deploying site networks, minisites, or new ways of using small sites to sell their domain names (this is what I have had success with as far as minisites go). After the group is chosen I will send out a message with the details of what the tool consists of and what type of feedback we are interested in.

The tool is based on something we use internally in a different manner. We had originally debated on whether we make a domainer version of the tool and in the end though it was worth the incremental effort to make the changes needed.

Now before anyone thinks I am getting into the business of building minisites for people, I am not. My team is busy enough building sites for small business customers. I am more interested in creating tools than trying to make money developing sites for 100 or 200 dollars.

More detail to come at launch!!!