Using FTP Client to Modify Your Website

The idea of opening your own website to showcase your goods or services is truly great. To bring it to life, you purchase the classified script, have tech support install it to your server, and you come to realize that you need to make a ton of changes to the way website looks and feels, such as:

• Replacing the sample logo with the logo of your company or website,
• Adjusting the default color scheme to match the ones of your logo, and
• The slogan in the header of your website has to be replaced to the one you came up with.

These are just a few of the tasks that you can take care of with the help of an FTP client.

So, What Is the FTP Client?

An FTP client is a program installed on your computer that allows managing files on remote server(s). Things your FTP client can help you with include, but are not limited to, the following operations:

• Edit and rename existing files,
• Upload new files,
• Remove unneeded files and folders, and
• Perform a number of other functions that can vary among different FTP clients (to learn more, please visit the Wikipedia article on Comparison of FTP client software).

The FTP client is an important part of the webmaster tools, which helps us do our job faster and easier.

Getting Started

So, you have decided to make some changes to the look and feel of your new website.

First of all, you need to get all the details of your server's FTP account from your hosting provider, namely, FTP host, username and password.

Following that, you need to ensure that an FTP client is installed on your computer.

When it comes to using the software, you do not really need to be a rocket scientist. A typical FTP client interface is very user-friendly, straightforward, therefore, you can easily understand how to work with it.

Basically, the process of working with your FTP client on your website boils down to the following prerequisites:

1. Open the client,
2. Enter your website's host name, username and password,
3. Click the “Connect” button to access the contents of your server directories.

Once you are in, you can start managing and manipulating with files and folders there.

Each FTP client has its own set of commands to manage files and directories. In case you are not sure what you can do with files/folders, use the right-click context menu.

Changing the Logo

Let's see how FTP client can help us on a very practical example. Our task is to change the logo on your new iRealty-based website.

I am using the FTP client called FileZilla, which is a GNU/GPL freeware product that is just perfect for all my needs, and I would like to demonstrate how to change the default iRealty logo to my custom logo. Here's a step-by-step instruction on how to do that:

I open FileZilla, enter FTP access details, and connect to the server where my iRealty-based website is installed, going straight to the public_html root.

I find the file with the logo in the appropriate theme's /files folder. Then I open the directory on my computer where my custom logo file is located, rename it to logo.jpg, to avoid changing the reference to the logo file in templates.

My next step would be to right-click on my custom logo file, and from the dropdown menu, select “Upload” to upload my custom logo to the server.

Since both file names are identical, FileZilla asks my permission to replace the old logo file with my custom logo file.

Let's see the results of the above on the front page.

Voila, we have successfully replaced the logo using the FileZilla FTP client.

Using the same procedure, you can make changes to templates, php files, add your pictures, edit css files and much much more. All you need for that is the FTP client and a text editor such as Notepad or Notepad++.

Author: Lena K., Head of Support Department, 

WorksForWeb

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