How to Build an FTP Website at Home

By Ty Arthur

Overview

As the Internet continues to gain in popularity, the need to build and maintain a personal or business website also increases. While most web-hosting companies have their own software for uploading and rearranging files, many people prefer to use a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) program so that they have more control over how they can administer the various aspects of their site.

How to Build an FTP Website at Home

Step 1

Download and install an FTP program that has the features you need and is within your price range. Choose an FTP program such as SmartFTP, FileZilla or GoFTP if you want a free program that is easy to set up and you don't need to upload dozens of files at once. Purchase a higher end program such as WS_FTP if you need extra features such as file encryption, faster upload speeds and multiple uploads at the same time.
Step 2

Acquire a domain name for your website if you do not already have one. Domain names typically cost a small annual fee and are available in multiple formats such as .com, .net, .org, or .biz.

Step 3

Find a web-hosting service that will meet the traffic demands you expect your website to have. Compare the prices, amount of bandwidth available, number of email addresses provided and total storage space available through the major web-hosting companies such as Yahoo, Geocities or Host Monster.
Step 4

Open a normal text file and write out the HTML code for your main website. Be sure to include the opening and closing <head> and <body> tags for your page to display properly. Save the file with the .html extension so that it can be used by your FTP program.
Step 5

Open the FTP program that you installed and set up your user name and password. Input your website's domain information and then upload the text file for your main website.
Step 6

Upload any further HTML files, music files or images that your website needs. Create separate folders in the FTP program for different types of files and different areas of your website, such as a folder specifically for images. Don't forget to change the HTML code referencing the objects if you use a different folder. For example if you have a GIF image called "logo" in a folder called "images," you would need to type /images/logo.gif instead of just the normal logo.gif.

Skill: Moderate
Ingredients:
Internet connection
Tip: If you are looking to drive large amounts of traffic to your website, you should research what keywords to put on your site for proper search-engine optimization and even consider paying for advertising through a website such as Google.
Warning:
If you want to host your own website without paying a web-hosting service, you will need to set aside a separate computer as a server that is connected to the Internet 24 hours a day and has enough processing power to handle requests from multiple users at the same time.

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