FTP – So you want to upload your Web Pages?

FTP Stands for File Transfer Protocol and is used to transfer files from your computer to your online web hosting account or your own dedicated server. FTP is a standard feature on all GoHosting Web Hosting accounts. There are a number of FTP programs available for you to use, some are easier to use than others, and some have different features like allowing you to resume file transfers or modify permissions on folders within your hosting account. Most Operating Systems like Windows or Linux / Unix systems have an inbuilt FTP program that you can use without installing any additional software. Some WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editors like Microsoft Frontpage, Expressions Web, or Dreamweaver have their own inbuilt FTP program that uploads the site when you publish the site providing you have your settings correct. WYSIWYG is a very common practice in building websites.

Some popular FTP applications include:

WS_FTP - Not a free application, but works well. http://www.ipswitchft.com/index.asp
FileZilla – A Open Source (FREE) FTP Solution that works well also. http://filezilla-project.org/index.php
SmartFTP – Both Free and Paid versions, another good choice. http://www.smartftp.com/
CoffeeCup FTP – A Free full featured FTP application. You can purchase support from them if required: http://www.coffeecup.com/free-ftp/

Try a few different applications and eventually you will find one that you like.

The settings you will need to configure in your FTP Client to connect to GoHosting include your User Name, Your Password, A Host Name and sometimes a Web Directory or Home Directory.

Hostname: This is normally your domain name, or a GoHosting server that is usually defined in your Welcome Email.
Username: Your username is generally the same as your control panel login for cPanel users or a username you configured if you are a Plesk user.
Password: Your password is generally the same as your control panel login for cPanel users or a password you configured if you are a Plesk user.
Home Directory: This is usually the /public_html for cPanel users or the /htdocs directory for Plesk users.

If you have any trouble connecting to your GoHosting Web Hosting account, please contact GoHosting support and we will be able to assist you.

So you now have your website built and hosted, but is it worthwhile? Is your website working for you? Is your website linking you with lots of portential customers? I won’t go into a whole lot of detail about the technicalities of Search Engine Optimisation and what are the best methods of increasing traffic or what you can do to improve your visitors and Search Engine rankings. I will just give a brief overview of what it is and why it is important.

SEO, stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Wikipedia describes Search Engine Optimisation as: “Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (”organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of searches, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.”

Basically this means that your website is optimised to rank better in search engines and drive a higher amount of targetted traffic to your website, potentially increasing sales and interest in your products and or services. Does this mean if i get my site optimised for search engines i will rank in the top positions in search engines? Not necessarilly. Each search engine uses a bunch of different rules and algorithms to determine who gets the top spot, things that they take into consideration include geography, content relativity, competitiveness, popularity and a whole lot of other things. Search Engine Optimisation is not a simple one of process that you do once and expect to get thousands of visitors over night, no its a ongoing commitment, a long process where results can take months, but you do get results. You can optimise your existing content and improve your current rankings, but is this enough? It might be, but overall if you continually add more content and optimise that content to revolve around your keywords then you will get a much much better result in the long term.

It is also important to select your keywords around niche areas of your business or website, as it will be alot easier to get higher rankings in less competitive markets. For example if you ran a plumbing website and you chose keywords such as “plumbing” or “pipe” those areas might be hard to reach high ranking positions because of the sheer number of Plumbers in the marketplace. However if you chose a more niche set of keywords such as “plumbers tape” or “plumbing glue” it will be easier to move up the rankings in search engines. Most importanly though make sure your keywords, content, descriptions, headers and titles all revolve around keywords relating to your business.

The whole point of Search Engine Optimisation is to improve the amount of visitors who are interested in your products and or services. This is why it is important, after all thats the whole point of having a website to let the world know about you.

I hope this post helps someone.

Cheers,
The GoHosting Team