Overview

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Every web site needs its information periodically updated to remain current and useful to its audience. When it comes time to update your web site, you can use the following steps:

Download the current files from the site's server (see the FTP tutorial for more information). If you're the only person working on the site from this point on, you should only have to do this step once. However, if there are multiple people working on the site, you should make a habit of downloading the latest version of the file(s) you need to work on before you start making changes. This should help you avoid overwriting the work of others.
Modify and update the files (see the HTML tutorial for more information). Writing and editing HTML "by hand" is not as hard as it sounds, especially when you're only making changes to content and not the site's design. For client-side programming, see the JavaScript interactive tutorial series on 3DM Design Dev Journal.
Test your modified files in a web browser. You should make sure that the result of your editing is satisfactory, that everything looks the way you expect it to. Ideally, you'd test the files on several different computers using different browsers and operating systems, but that can be time-consuming and is not always a realistic expectation. Instead, try to test your files on at least two different web browsers, such as Netscape and Internet Explorer (Opera is also an excellent standards-compliant browser to use in certain testing situations). Once in a while, you might also want to see what your files look like when you change your monitor resolution. Not only does testing help you weed out your mistakes, but examining your files in different browsers and at different resolutions can give you an idea of how your site will look to different users (since each user has a unique system).
Upload your modified files to the site's server (see the FTP tutorial for more information). As soon as you upload your files to the server, your changes are "live" and can be seen by all users visiting the site.

That's the basic process to follow when maintaining your web site. Remember to keep your site up-to-date and you should be more successful in keeping the visitors you have and attracting more!

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