How to Update Your Website ?

A couple of years ago you spent quite bit of money on your website and now you desperately need to update it. It's easier than you think. I am here to help you. There are many ways to get your website updated. I will go over them step by step. This information will be especially useful to site owners of static websites. When we speak about static websites we are mainly talking about websites that are not database driven. So, how do you find out if your site is database driven or not? Well, if it's a huge site with over 50 pages there is a big chance that your website is database driven. One sure way to find out is get in touch with your web designer.

The next thing that you need to determine is the programming language that was used to build your website. I hear you saying "Aren't all websites built with HTML?" The answer to that is yes and no, yes they can be fully built with HTML but most contemporary websites are built using a mix of HTML, CSS (which stands for Cascading Style Sheets), JavaScript and sometimes server side scripts such as PHP or ASP. How to determine the language used to build your site? Go to the destination website that needs to be updated and click on a random link notice the file extension in your Browser URL bar. You'll notice for example that your URL either ends on ".HTML", ".PHP" or "ASP". There are a few more extensions. You can find a list of these extensions on w3schools.com By the way a great website that actually offers free online lessons and code samples for many programming languages. Definitely worth a visit.

Back to our main topic. Again focusing on static websites, you'll need some tools to update/expand your website. Here are the 2 tools you'll need: 1. An HTML editor such as Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe Dreamweaver or GoLive. The list is long and there are many HTML editing tools out there. But my suggestion is go with the pro tools and download a 30 day free trial of Adobe's Dreamweaver found on the website of www.adobe.com Dreamweaver is the industry leading web development tool. 2. You'll also need a FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program. The FTP tool allows you to connect to a remote server (This is where your website resides on) and modify data. Again there are a lot of FTP tools available, but the most workable ones are from CuteFTP, WSFTP, and FlashFXP. They all have one purpose upload to or download from your web server. My suggestion is go with this one: "Ipswitch WS_FTP Home 2007" you can try it for free.

You can find and download this tool at downloads.com To get your FTP tool to work and connect to your web server you'll need the following information:

1. Your FTP server address (you can obtain that from your hosting provider)

2. FTP Username (if you don't know your username and password combination, contact your hosting provider)

3. Password (if you don't know your username and password combination, contact your hosting provider). With these tools you'll be able to connect to your webserver and make modifications to your website.