These days, Wordpress can be installed, updated and maintained without ever opening an ftp (I’ll explain later) program or uploading files to your server (where your website lives) through your website host’s control panel. These days, you could – within reason – completely manage your own blog or website without the help of a website developer or virtual assistant.

But some tasks still do require access to the server. This is where a number of my clients get stuck. Although there are fancy plugins that allow you to install other plugins, sometimes they break or don’t work. In most circumstances, installing new themes still requires access to your server (some website hosting companies make that easy through a control panel). Sometimes, you need to move pictures and files from your computer to your server and you don’t have all day.

This is where ftp comes in. Ftp stands for file transfer protocol. It is not a complicated process or idea at all. It’s just an acronym, which makes it scary, right? If you can move files from one folder on your computer to another, you can use ftp.

Why You Need to Learn This

So we’ve covered some of the very basic reasons you would need to use ftp to access your server. Let’s look at a very short list (you can add your own as you start to get a better understanding):

1. You want to install a new Wordpress theme and your website host doesn’t provide a way to do it
2. You need to remove files from your server that are outdated or problematic.
3. You need to upload a bunch of photos or large files and the File Manager on your website host control panel takes way too long.
4. You need to install the Wordpress plugin installer plugin  (go figure – you need ftp to do this first!)
5. After someone’s installed the plugin installer plugin, you need to install a plugin that is NOT in a .zip file.
6. You need to upload a new logo or banner.

The reasons go on and on. Here’s what you could do: you could hire a website developer or virtual assistant to do it for you and pay them, or you could take the next 10 minutes to learn FileZilla and start managing files on your website server yourself.

How to Use FileZilla

I’ve used a few different ftp programs and I believe that FileZilla is the easiest to use. This is a matter of opinion, entirely. But since the assumption is that you aren’t using anything right now, go ahead and try FileZilla and once you understand how it works, you can shop around for something better for you.

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— Tia Peterson

If it makes you feel uncomfortable calling yourself “the expert” in your particular field or industry, try writing it down, reading it a few times over and then possibly even saying it out loud.

With internet marketing, it’s crucial to be an expert and equally as crucial to let people know that you are an expert.

The truth is that the day you began charging for your work is the day you considered yourself an expert. In my opinion, there are novices and experts. Novices don’t usually charge for what they do, so if you’re charging, you are an expert by default.

Experts haven’t necessarily “arrived.” There’s no solemn law that says that if you’re an expert, you have learned all there is to know about your work. You are continually growing, learning, and improving so don’t let the feeling that you don’t know all there is to know hold you back from calling yourself the expert.

Once you’ve gotten comfortable with the fact that you’re an expert, do what experts do:

• Submit articles – free and paid. Seek out those who will pay you for your writing but don’t limit yourself only to those experiences.
• Participate in forums by offering your advice. No one likes it when they ask a question in a forum and an “expert” replies saying only, “I have the answer you need. Contact me.” That’s not active participation! Be proactive and involved and offer your advice.
• Put a LOT of good content on your website that you can link to later. Be thinking ahead. I’ve posted all sorts of Wordpress-related content on my website that I can now refer to in forums, blogs and articles. Instead of just linking to random, “salesy” pages on my website, I can now link to good, solid, informative content that helps people. This is a great way to increase the quality links coming into your website.

— Tia Peterson