3. Getting Started

Once you’ve purchased a hosting plan you will need to get your site up and running.  This is where choosing a host with good support can really help.  Good hosts will hold your hand through the entire transfer process and some will even transfer your site to their servers for you.  Here are the steps you or your host will need to take to transfer your site:

1. If you are transferring email set up your email accounts on the hosts email server.
2. Transfer your site’s content onto the hosts server via FTP.  You can use an FTP client such as CuteFTP or use Microsoft’s built in FTP client.
3. If you have a database back it up and restore it on your hosts database server.  Common tools used to manage your database in hosted environments are phpMyAdmin, myLittleAdmin, SQL Management Studio Express, and MySQL Administrator.  The first two tools are web based while your host will need to open up a port to their server to your IP in order for you to use the second two tools.
4. Check your site using the IP address or hostname that your host gives you for this purpose to ensure that there are no errors.
5. Log onto the site where you registered your domain name and change the name servers for your domain to the one’s that your host gives you.
6. If you are transferring email change your mail clients so that their configuration matches the configuration required by your host.

Once you’ve taken the steps above, your site should be up within 48 hours (the time DNS takes to propogate) and you can sit back, relax and wait for the traffic to start coming in.