The fifth and final Essential Tool you need to build a great website is an FTP Software.
An FTP Software is an application that enables you to transfer data from your computer to your website on the Internet, and vice versa. There are many other ways to do it, including using an online interface provided by your webhost, but usually, using an FTP Software is the swiftest way of transfering your data.
The FTP Software allows you to upload (that's to say, put on the Internet) new pages to your website as well as update existing pages. It also allows you to download stuff from other websites (but that's outside the scope of our intention here).
The FTP Software that I use is called WS FTP, which stands for WinSock File Transfer Protocol. It's a simple application which is very useful. To download it, go to http://www.ftpplanet.com or http://www.ipswitch.com/products/ws_ftp/index.asp. or google for "Free FTP Download" to see what comes up.
Now let's recap the five essential tools for a great website:
Tool #1: HTML Editor
Tool #2: HTML Codes
Tool #3: Domain Name
Tool #4: Web Hosting
Tool #5: FTP Software
You see that I have not mentioned stuff like animation, Photoshop, Flash, and all those other so-called "cool" stuff. The point is, whether or not there are those "cool" stuff on your website doesn't matter at all. A great website does not need any of these things. If you study HappyJoblessGuy.com and compare it with my other websites, you'd realise that it does not even have a single photograph anywhere! And yet, I can tell you that it is getting a lot more traffic than those website with very "cool" features.
Now that you've learned the five Essential Tools, is that all we need for a great website? Are you kidding? We haven't even started yet. What we have are just the basics!
In the next chapter, we will look at Building a Profit-Making Website. As of now, I want you to be familiar with the five Essential Tools in this chapter. Please go ahead and register your web hosting and obtain your domain name, but once again, let me urge you to give the domain name a good thinking through before decided which. If you choose a wrong one at the beginning stage, fine, it only costs another US$10 or so to register another. But you need to make sure it is a domain name you want to own for years and years to come. Who knows, one day you may even sell that domain and the whole web business for $1 million? So, choose carefully.
Postscript:
If you feel that learning to handle so many applications are a bit too much for you, there's good news. You can also use Site Build It, a combo hosting-and-domain company that will take care of all the applications I have just described. They will also provide you lessons to ensure that you build a good, content-rich website. To learn more about it, take a look at the Site Build It Action Guide.
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