How to Upload a Website to GoDaddy

By JoshGilmore1

i Ryan McVay/Photodisc/Getty Images

Getting your website designed and developed can be a costly investment, especially if you are just starting out. In many cases, business owners and individuals like you will have to develop and manage their own website. Once you have your website designed, you will have to purchase a hosting account and upload it to the hosting provider’s server. If you have already purchased GoDaddy hosting and a domain name, you are close to having your site live on the Internet.

Instructions

Step 1

Open your FTP client and type in your GoDaddy hosting account username and password.

If you want to avoid using a third-party FTP client, you can use the built-in GoDaddy FTP client; however, this is not recommended for large files. To access the GoDaddy FTP client, go to "Hosting" under "My Products." Click "Manage Account" by your hosting account. Under "Content", click "FTP Client."

Step 2

Navigate to the folder on your server where your new website files will be stored. In most circumstances, use the initial directory.

Step 3

Go to the folder on your hard drive that contains your website’s HTML files.

Step 4

Once you have successfully logged in to your server through the FTP client, drag and drop the files from your hard drive to the server. Make sure you have an index.html file; this is the initial page of your website that will be seen when someone types in your domain name. For example, www.yoursite.com/index.html is equivalent to www.yoursite.com.

Step 5

Visit your domain name to see if the files uploaded correctly. Under most circumstances, your site should be live instantaneously. Refresh your browser if you do not see any changes.

Step 6

Troubleshoot any problems that arise. Click on every link, particularly internal links, to see if they are working properly. If they are not working, go back to the raw HTML file and correct them as needed. All link and image paths should be relative to the domain and not paths on your computer. For instance, a header image might read file:///C|/my documents/photos/header1.jpg in the source code when it should read /images/header1.jpg or http://www.yoursite.com/images/header1.jpg.

Step 7

Promote your new website!

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