Web Hosting Hints

Web Hosting Hints to Upload Your Website

In reality, with the help of these web hosting hints, hosting your website is a very simple and straightforward procedure. There are four steps you should consider when you transfer your site over to a web hosting account.

Hint #1: Establish a Reliable Web Hosting Account

If you haven’t already done so, make sure to sign up with a reliable web host that suits your needs. There are many web hosting companies available, and each of them specifically caters to a segment of the webmaster population. Some hosts are specifically designed to be as user friendly as possible, while others offer services for webmasters who are more familiar with scripting languages and advanced internet technology.

The most important elements of a web hosting account that you want to be aware of are the amount of website space provided and the maximum traffic, or bandwidth, allowed. Also, the key to obtaining a reliable web hosting service is to look for services that have an established history of reliability and a good reputation within the webmaster community.

The following hosting companies are five of the most popular based on reliability, value, and customer service. These rankings are based on a survey of reviews and opinions from online webmaster forums:

• Godaddy's basic account provides 150 Gb of space with 15kGb of bandwidth. Average Price: $3.65 to $12.74/month.
• HostMonster offers unlimited storage space, and unlimited bandwidth. Average Price: $6.95/month
• Lunarpages provides customers with 1500 Gb of storage space and 15000 Gb of traffic. Average Price: $6.95/month and up.
• Bluehost presents customers with unlimited website space and bandwidth. Average Price: $6.95/month.
• Host Gator provides customers with 600 Gb of hosting space at a traffic bandwidth of 6000 Gb. Average Price: $4.95 to $7.95 per month.

Once you have a fully developed web page, it is a simple process to upload a complete website to your host account. Advanced webmasters typically use the ftp approach, while webmasters who aren't quite as technically savvy use the simple file management interface.

Hint #2: Verify All of Your Links

A common mistake people make when creating a local website is to inadvertently link to the local directory on the c: drive of that computer. This is especially common with simple html editors such as FrontPage or Netscape Composer. The best web design technique to prevent this problem is to make sure the links point to the same directory where all of your other files are stored, not the entire path.

For example, instead of:

Your links should look like:

Or to link to other internal web pages:

Review all of your hyperlinks and image links before uploading the web page or all of those links might no longer work properly.

Hint #3: Connect to the Web Host and Upload Through FTP

There are typically two methods available to upload files from your computer to your web host - either with a file manager, or using an FTP client.

The file manager software is usually provided through the web-based control panel of your web hosting account. This software provides a user-friendly environment where you can browse for files on your computer to upload.

Using a file manager is inefficient. However, utilizing the power of FTP software, you can transfer entire sets of files at once. Taking the time to learn this software will greatly reduce the time it takes to transfer files to and from your hosting account in the future.

The most popular windows-based FTP clients include:

1. WSFTP - Ws FTP from Ipswitch
2. CoffeeCup FTP - CoffeeCup Free FTP
3. JavaFTP - JavaFTP by Webmasters.com
4. FreeFTP - FreeFTP by Brandyware

Typically the FTP Client presents the remote host directory on one side, and your computer's directory structure on the other. Highlight all of the files and folders where your webpage is stored on your computer, and click the upload function to upload all of the files to your httpdocs directory on the web server.

Hint #4: Test Your Website

Once your website is completely uploaded to your web host account, the final step is to test. Spending enough time testing your website now will avoid any embarrassing errors popping up later, such as dead or invalid links.

First, type your domain name into the location field of your web browser. From your main page, start clicking on each of your links one at a time and ensure that the link takes you where you intended it to go. As you discover broken links, correct them immediately and re-upload the corrected web page.

Also, visit every web page you created and make sure that every image loads correctly.

Web Hosting Made Easy

Hosting a web page is often a scary concept to most people who do not consider themselves technically savvy. However, hosting a web page is not rocket science. If you are able to accomplish the impressive feat of creating your own web page on your computer, you are already more than halfway to having your website published on the internet. Publishing your web page is so simple that there are now many non-technical people publishing their own websites. With a little bit of confidence and lot of practice, you can do it too.