Uploading and Maintaining your Website
with WS_FTP Professional

WS_FTP doesn’t necessarily build your website, but it does play a vital role in the process.

It transfers the files that make up your site a remote computer called a web server. After WS_FTP is done transferring your files, the web server does the work of "serving" your files when visitors browse to your website’s address.

Building a website, HTML, CSS, Graphics and More:

If you are interested in seeing what HTML looks like, click right-click your mouse on any web page, you should see an option to "View Source" or "View Page Source". You will see a lot of HTML, links to graphic files and other code such as CSS and Javascript. This code makes the site you’re viewing look and function the way it does. With some of the free and paid tools available today, you don’t necessarily need to write this code by hand, you can manage much of the layout, links, and effects using their "Point and Click" tools.

Don’t get us wrong, learning about HTML, CSS and other languages like Javascript and jQuery are a must if you are serious about web development and design, and learning a little bit about HTML can be helpful even if you’re not!

There are many user-friendly HTML editors which make building website’s easier and a lot of fun.

HTML Editors For Building Your Site

Adobe Dreamweaver (Free for 30-Days)
Dreamweaver is one of the most popular HTML editors, for intermediate and advanced users.
Download Trial

Komodo Edit (Free)
Komodo Edit is a free, open source editor that has support for Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl, plus JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and XML, and template languages like RHTML, Template-Toolkit, HTML-Smarty and Django!
Download Trial

Aptana Studio (Free)
Aptana Studio is a complete web development environment that combines powerful authoring tools with a collection of online hosting and collaboration services that help you and your team do more.
Download Free

NVU (Free)
XML support, advanced CSS support, full site management, built-in validator, and international support as well as WYSIWYG and color coded XHTML editing.
Download Free

Using WS_FTP Professional to upload your site and get it online!

Once you’re done using your HTML editor of choice, you will have a bunch of files sitting on your computer including HTML, CSS, Graphics, and other media files. They all need to find their way to a web server so the rest of the world and access and enjoy your newly created site.

You may have some free web space provided by your ISP, or perhaps you’ve taken the plunge and signed up with a hosting company like our favorite, Dreamhost (which serves the page you are reading right now!).

Either way, the company that will host or serve your website has or can provide you with the hostname or IP address, username and password for your account.

Using the Hostname, Username and Password you can make a connection to your web server and upload your files to make your site available to anyone with an Internet connection.

Starting an FTP Connection with WS_FTP Professional

Watch this great video tutorial on how to create the connection to your hosting service.

Watch the Video Now >>