Web Hosting   

On the surface this appears to be a simple thing. Pay someone $7 a month to use their server which is connected to the internet. For that $7 you get a preset amount of storage space, bandwith and email accounts for your domain name. The challenge comes from having to learn how to manage your site on the hosts system. All systems in this price range are going to be shared servers which should be no problem cause you’re not big enough yet to need a dedicated server. You will need to know how to upload your web files to their server, how to manage the features on their server and how to configure your email accounts on the web server. 

Most systems use two basic types of file uploading. Either through a cPanel service which resides on their server or through an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client. I have done it both ways and they both have there good feature. 

Using cPanel up upload files individually and it requires you to understand the file and directory structure of the server. This structure is very similar to Window Explorer with directories and sub directories. 

Using FTP requires a stand alone FTP program such as Filezilla which has to be configured with all the details of your web ftp server. When you first sign up with your web host they email you all these details. It will be things like your ftp server address, user name, password and the directory path to your home directory on the server. FTP protocol can be tricky to get set up but once it is you can make changes to your web pages on your computer and then just click a “publish” button and it automatically uploads any changes made since your last upload. 

Even if you are using FTP you may still need to understand and use cPanel to upload individual download, thank you or sales pages to your site.

My web design software has a built-in FTP client. If you will be making periodic or regular changes to your website then you will need to become proficient with cPanel or and FTP client. Web Hosting and ongoing site management are services that I provide.