How to Upload Your Website to the Internet

If you have a website you’d like to share with the world, then you need to get past the idea that it is difficult to upload your website to a server. It’s not. This guide will go through the motions, and guide you step-by-step through uploading your own website, whether for business or just your personal website.

The first step is to actually create your website. I’m going to assume that you know how to do this, or maybe you even have this step done already.

Now, after you have your website all nice and made, you need to set it up so that it’s live on the internet. You can use a free webhost if you’d like, but chances are, you’ll never get a lo of visitors. The problem is that Google will conveniently list you down at the bottom of a jillion other pages, and you’ll never get searched. To actually get any value out of this site, you need to buy a domain name and get real internet hosting. The cost should be about $24 for a whole year if you follow these instructions.

To start with, find a domain name. Get one via Namecheap, a site that lets you search for and manage all of your domain names (a domain name is the “name” of your website). Pick something that has similar terms to the general concept of your website. If you’re doing a website about dogs, you could try to find something like “ilovedogs.com” or “myprettydogs.com” or something like that. Buy whichever of the address you like, but keep in mind that a .info address is only $3. The others, like .com and .net are $9, and they work exactly the same. Save money where you can.

Once you have an account and a domain name, you need to get hosting (i.e. a company that will put your files on the internet for you). I suggest going with Cyberland USA, as they have a plan that is only $1.75 per month ($21 per year). Get that plan, and you can upgrade later if you need to.

Now, you’re almost there. Once you sign up with Cyberland USA, you’ll get an email that tells you how to upload your site. There’s a lot of information in that email, so I suggest printing it out and saving it in case something happens to your computer. If you follow the instructions there, you’ll do fine. Here’s the confusing parts explained a bit better.

Your DNS Server addresses that you’ll get in your Cyberland USA email need to be added in at Namecheap. To do this, copy one server address and sign in to your account at Namecheap. Once there, open up the information for your chosen site. On the left, there is a tab for ‘Domain Name Server Setup.’ Click on that, and then, by the text box that is named “dns1”, you paste the DNS Server name. Repeat this for your second server name.

To upload your site, you need an FTP program. I suggest FTP Commander because it has a very simple interface, and it’s free. To set up your site, all you need to do is click “New server” on the right-hand side. For name, call this site whatever you want, and for FTP Server and port, use whatever address Cyberland gives you (it should be a bunch of numbers separated by dots). Likewise, your user name and password were given to you by Cyberland. Click the button that says “Save Password” so that you never have to mess with this step again. Then save the entire server.

Double click to open that server (a server is a computer that stores your info). Now, on the right, open the folder called public HTML. One the left, find the HTML document you generated above. Highlight that, and then click the arrow that points to the right. Once it goes over, your website is officially updated.

If you just got done updating the DNS Servers, it could take up to two days until you can view your site. Double check to see if your site is working like it should be. Once it is done, you need to advertise.

Post a link to that site on your myspace page or put the link on the bottom of all your emails. Tell your friends about it. Join US Free Ads and write a couple advertisements. Really, this is how you will generate visitors. Unfortunately, there’s too much competition to simply rely on Google, but with just a few posts you can get a good number of visitors who will keep on coming back.