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FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a simple method of transferring files from your computer to the server that hosts your website. It's an easy way for you to get your pages on the internet. I use a little program called FTP Explorer. It's free and you can download it below.
Step 1: Download FTP Explorer It comes as a .zip file, so after you download it you'll need to unzip it with a program like WinZip or ZipGenius. After you've unzipped the file you can install the program by double-clicking Setup.exe. Follow the on-screen instructions. You can use any other FTP program but the example images shown here will be for FTP Explorer.
Step 2: Check on / modify your FTP account information. Login to your DreamHost account and look at the left-hand sidebar. Click on Users then Manage Users.
This will bring you to a page like this:
The important bits of information you need from this screen are the user information and the password. Near the top in my example it says: Editing User: aragornrain (on bonanno) "aragornrain" is my username and "bonanno" is the name of my server. Your screen will show your username and server. Write these down for future reference. You'll need it soon. A bit farther down the page, you can enter a new password. This password will only be used for your FTP access and won't change the password you use for logging into your main DreamHost account. If you already know what this password is, leave it. Otherwise, update it. Write the down the password – you'll need it soon, too.
Step 3: Set up FTP Explorer When you first open FTP Explorer, you should get a screen that looks fairly blank. Click the button circled in this image:
This button is "Connect" which will bring up a screen that will allow you to connect to your server.
You will have a list of sample profiles on the left side. You can choose any one of them to modify. Profile Name: I call this "dreamhost websites" because it is where I access all of the websites that I have hosted with DreamHost. You can call it anything you want. Host Address: This is where you use the information you wrote down earlier. In my example, I have bonanno.dreamhost.com because that's my server name. Yours is different. This is the information you got from the "Manage Users" screen before.
Login: This is your username. In my example, it's "aragornrain".
Again, you got this information from the "Manage Users" screen. Click Connect. If you've entered everything correctly, you'll be logged in. You'll see some folders like this:
Double-click on the folder that has the name of your website. In this example, it's "howtostartawebsite-forbeginners.com". You should now see a screen that looks like this:
Now you can put the web page you made on the internet, so that it's actually part of your website. First, click the button with the Up arrow that's circled in this illustration. That button is for "Upload".
Quick terminology:
After you click the Upload button you'll see a screen where you can browser your computer to find the file that you want to upload. If your hello.htm file is still on your Desktop, that's where you'll find it.
Once you've found hello.htm and selected it, click Open. Now you can go see it on the internet!
Step 4: Go see your web page Go back to Internet Explorer or the browser of your choice. In the address bar, type your domain name followed with a slash then hello.htm, like this: http://www.howtostartawebsite-forbeginners.com/hello.htm
Your web page is now online and available for anyone to see. If you've made it this far, I want to give you a big congratulations! If you were a complete beginner at website creation, you've learned a lot and you now have your own functioning website. I hope that everything went smoothly for you. The next step is to start putting together your website. That is definitely another topic and it isn't covered on this website, but I'll give you a bit of information on how to get started in the next section.
Next: Next Steps >>
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