Uploading your website to a hosting service can seem daunting, but it can be a breeze with the right tools. FileZilla is a popular and widely used FTP client that allows you to transfer files between your computer and your hosting service quickly.
This tutorial will use FileZilla to upload your website to SiteGround, a popular web hosting provider. Whether you’re new to web development or a seasoned pro, this guide will walk you through the process step-by-step.
A Warning About Transferring Files using FTP
Like many other FTP clients, FileZilla uses the FTP protocol to transfer files. FTP is an insecure protocol sending data, including login credentials and transferred files, in plain text. This makes it easy for attackers to intercept and read your data.
It’s important to use a more secure protocol such as SFTP (Secure File Transfer Protocol) or FTPS (FTP over SSL/TLS) when transferring sensitive information.
These protocols encrypt the data being transferred, making it much harder for attackers to intercept and read your data.
We’ll cover how to use SFTP in a future tutorial, but for now, we’ll use FTP to upload your website to SiteGround. After completing this tutorial, you may wish to delete your FTP account or change your FTP password.
Free Website Migration Service from SiteGround
If you want to change hosting provider to SiteGround, SiteGround offers a free website migration service. They will gladly help you securely move your website files, databases, and emails to your new hosting account.
Furthermore, if you still need a hosting account with SiteGround, you can get up to an 80% discount on your first invoice.
What you will need to complete this tutorial
This tutorial assumes you have already created an FTP account in SiteGround’s Site Tools and have your FTP credentials to hand.
If you haven’t done this yet, you can find instructions via the following links:
- How to Create an FTP Account in SiteGround’s Site Tools
- Where to access your FTP credentials in SiteGround’s Site Tools
The tutorial will also assume you have already downloaded and installed FileZilla on your computer.
If you haven’t done this yet, you can download it here:
Right, let’s get started!
How to use FileZilla to upload your website to SiteGround
Note: This tutorial is based on FileZilla version 3.63.1
The first step is to open FileZilla and go to the Site Manager, where you will add your SiteGround FTP connection credentials.
- Open FileZilla and click on File in the top left corner of the window.
- Click on Site Manager in the drop-down menu.
This is shown in the screenshot below.
The next step is to add your SiteGround FTP connection to FileZilla’s Site Manager. This will allow you to connect easily to your SiteGround hosting account in the future.
- Click on New Site in the top left corner of the window.
- Enter a name for your connection in the file tree box. This can be anything you like, but it’s recommended that you use a name that will help you identify your SiteGround FTP connection in the future. For example, you could use the name of your website or your hosting account.
You can see an example of this in the screenshot below.
The next step is to enter your SiteGround FTP connection details in the Site Manager’s General Tab.
- In the Host field, enter your FTP server hostname, which can be found in the SiteGround Site Tools under the FTP Accounts section. See this guide for instructions on how to find your FTP server details in SiteGround’s Site Tools.
- Enter 21 in the Port field.
- Select “Only use plain FTP (insecure)” from the Encryption drop-down menu.
- Enter your FTP username and password in the corresponding fields.
- Make sure the Logon Type is set to Normal.
- Click Connect, and FileZilla will connect to your SiteGround hosting account.
If you get a warning saying that the connection is insecure, click Yes to continue. We’ve already warned about this in the introduction to this tutorial.
You can see an example of this in the screenshot below.
Once connected, you’ll see two main sections in the FileZilla window: the local site on the left and the remote site on the right.
The next step is to select the files you want to upload to your SiteGround hosting account.
- Navigate to the local site where your website files are located.
- Select all the files you want to upload.
In this example, we’re uploading a simple index.html located in a folder on the computer desktop. We’ll navigate to the desktop folder and then select the index.html file.
The next step is to upload the selected files to your SiteGround hosting account. We want to upload the files to the public_html folder, which is the root folder for your website. All the files in this folder will be live on your website.
- Navigate to the remote site to which your website files will be uploaded (i.e., the public_html folder).
- Drag and drop the selected files from the left pane to the right pane. This will start the uploading process.
In our example, we are only uploading one website file. However, you can easily drag and drop multiple files and folders to upload them all at once.
Once the upload is finished, your website files will be live on SiteGround. You can visit your website to confirm that the files have been - uploaded correctly.
The last step is to disconnect from your SiteGround hosting account. This will prevent unauthorized access to your hosting account.
- Click on File in the top left corner of the window.
- Click on Disconnect in the drop-down menu.
This will disconnect you from your SiteGround hosting account.
Note: As mentioned previously, you may want to delete the SiteGround FTP connection from the Site Manager or change your password. This will prevent unauthorized access to your hosting account.