Web site maintenance, website management and web consulting services

File Transfer Protocol, or FTP for us cool people, is a simple tool that allows people to upload and download information from the Internet. Because you unwittingly use FTP every time you download a file, a video or an mp3 from your favourite site, I thought you might want to know how to use it to backup and edit your company website. So here goes.

When you use FTP (you’re a cool person now) you Transfer files from a computer on the Internet to your computer, or vice versa. As a micro business owner, this allows you to:

• Download a backup copy of your website (a very good idea).
• Download a web page and make changes to it on your computer.
• Upload edited pages back to your web server for the world to see.

Using an FTP client to manage files

You can use FTP through a Web browser like Internet Explorer by directly accessing your website’s FTP address, but I wouldn’t recommend this for beginners, especially if you’re worried about file protection.

A much better way of transferring files is to use what is called an FTP client. An FTP client is a piece of software that does all the hard work for you, and makes you look awfully clever in front of your friends. Personally I recommend going this route, especially since there are a number of very good free FTP clients available.

I use an open source FTP client called Filezilla on my PC, my Mac and as a portable installation on a Flash drive. Every website I manage is available to me at the click of a mouse button using Filezilla, and it saves me hundreds of hours every year. To get a free copy of Filezilla, visit http://filezilla-project.org/download.php and choose the version best suited to your operating system.

What you’ll need to download a copy of your website

Later this week I’m going to be posting a step-by-step tutorial showing you how to download your website from your web server to your PC (or mac) for safekeeping. If you’d like to follow along you’ll need to have the following handy:

1. A freshly downloaded and installed copy of Filezilla. Just follow the Installation wizard that comes with the software to install it.
2. Your website’s FTP host name (usually yoursite.co.uk, ftp.yoursite.co.uk or something similar). Ask your web host if you’re not sure.
3. Your FTP username and password. Once again, if you don’t have this information at hand, ask your hosting provider.

This tutorial is important and I don’t want you to miss out, so please subscribe to my RSS feed, or use the email box in the sidebar and you’ll be among the first to know when it goes live.