Essential Webmaster Skills

Andrew Williams

4.6

Based on 188 ratings

Andrew Williams

If you're feeling overwhelmed by hosting, domain management, cPanel, and all the other bits and pieces that come with running a website, you’re not alone. The truth is, many new webmasters feel exactly the same way. That’s where this course comes in. It teaches you the things you need to know about being a webmaster, and successfully completing the tasks you need to complete.

A Practical Guide to Managing Your Website

This course is designed to take you from confused to confident. We’ll walk you through everything you need to know to manage your website like a pro—without the frustration. From understanding hosting and domain registrars to setting up professional email addresses, we’ll cover the essentials in simple, straightforward steps.

Why Hosting and Registrars Matter

Did you know that letting your web host also be your domain registrar might not be the best idea? You’re not the only one. We’ll explain why separating these services can actually give you more control and flexibility. If you’re already using a combined setup, don’t worry—we’ll show you how to make adjustments if you decide it’s right for you.

Email That Looks Professional

Domain-based emails give your website a professional touch. But many people shy away from using services like Gmail because they think it means logging into a browser every time. Not true. We’ll show you how to read and send emails directly from your favorite email app on your computer—no browser needed.

Managing Your Files: It’s Easier Than You Think

Your hosting space is like a virtual hard drive, but how do you actually manage what’s stored there? We’ll guide you through using FTP—don’t worry, it’s simpler than it sounds. Once it’s set up, it feels just like the file manager you’re already familiar with on your own computer.

The Power of cPanel

Most hosting companies offer cPanel for managing your website, and for good reason—it’s packed with tools to help you stay in control. We’ll show you the essentials, from managing your main domain to adding additional domains. You’ll come away knowing exactly how to navigate the most useful features without getting lost.

Boost Performance with a CDN

A Content Delivery Network (CDN) might sound technical, but it’s just a way to make your site faster and more secure. We’ll walk you through setting up a free CDN, step by step, so your pages load faster and your site stays protected.

Make the Most of Google’s Free Tools

Did you know that Google offers more than just search? Google Search Console is a hidden gem that gives you valuable insights into how your site performs. We’ll show you how to set it up, interpret the data, and fix any problems that could hurt your rankings. Plus, you’ll learn how to handle problematic backlinks so they don’t drag down your site.

And let’s not forget Google Analytics. This powerful tool tracks your visitors and helps you understand who’s coming to your site, what they’re doing, and how to keep them coming back. We’ll take you through the basics so you can see what’s working—and what isn’t.

Putting the Pieces Together

Creating a website is just the beginning. Keeping it running smoothly and making the most of the tools available is where the real work starts. This course will help you put it all together so you can finally feel in control of your online presence.

Whether you’re running a blog, an online store, or a portfolio site, this course will empower you with the skills and confidence to manage it all. Let’s take the guesswork out of website management—together.

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What's inside

Learning objectives

Use separate web host and registrar for added security.
Manage domains at a registrar level, including changing dns and moving from one registrar to another.
Confidently manage and administer your website.
Confidently navigate and use the tools in cpanel.
Setup google search console to monitor your website.

Track visitors to your site.
Create domain based email addresses as well as gmail. use a pc/mac based email client to read and write gmail without needing to log into the gmail website.
Manage files on the server with cpanel's file manager and/or ftp.
Install wordpress in a few clicks of the mouse.
Use a cdn and understand why it is a good idea.

Use separate web host and registrar for added security.
Manage domains at a registrar level, including changing dns and moving from one registrar to another.
Confidently manage and administer your website.
Confidently navigate and use the tools in cpanel.
Setup google search console to monitor your website.
Track visitors to your site.
Create domain based email addresses as well as gmail. use a pc/mac based email client to read and write gmail without needing to log into the gmail website.
Manage files on the server with cpanel's file manager and/or ftp.
Install wordpress in a few clicks of the mouse.
Use a cdn and understand why it is a good idea.

Syllabus

Understand what you will get from the course and who your instructor is.

This lecture introduces the instructor and the course content. Find out what you will learn in this course.

Before you begin the course, I'd appreciate a moment of your time to help me understand where you are coming from in terms of this type of material, and what you hope to get out of this course.

A list of webmaster related terms to help you navigate this course.

There are a lot of web hosts out there, but they are not all created equally. Learn the most important features of a web host, and how to choose a host that won't let you down.

I always recommend you use a separate web host and registrar. This tutorial explains why that is.

Since I recommend you use a separate registrar and web host, I better tell you who I recommend you use, and why.

This lecture shows you how to use a separate web host and registrar.

Once you have signed up for hosting, you'll be given cPanel login details. Let's have a quick look.

Let's have a look around the registrar dashboard so we can see where everything it.

For the registrar to be able to manage our domains for us, we need to tell them what we want them to do. This lecture shows you how you can do that.

There may be times when you need or want to transfer your domain name from one registrar to another. For example, before this course, you may have used the same company for registrar and host but want to move the domain to a separate registrar. This lecture shows you the process.

There are times when you will want to setup and use an email from your domain. This lecture shows you how to set that up.

Gmail addresses are free and very useful. I use them for all of my websites where possible. The beauty is that you can read and write to your Gmail address from desktop email clients like Thunderbird, so there is no need to login through your web browser to read Gmail.

File management is a common task for all webmasters. This video explores the File Manager built into cPanel. It's convenient when you are working inside cPanel, so well worth learning how to use it.

FTP is a simple way of managing files on your server. In this tutorial, we'll set up FTP for access to a specific folder on the server using Filezilla, a free FTP client for Windows and Mac.

A section inside cPanel called domains can often cause a lot of confusion. In this lecture, I'll explain the difference between primary domains and addon domains, plus why subdomains may not be the best thing since sliced bread.

Softaculous can be thought of as a script manager. Scripts include things like Wordpress, Joomla and Drupal, as well as some bulletin board scripts. Softacuouls can install and maintain these scripts, so let's see how you can access it.

You can install Wordpress manually using FTP or File Manager in cPanel, but it takes a lot more effort than just using Softaculous. In this tutorial, I want to show you how easy it is to install Wordpress using Softaculous.

Databases are used to store data. Scripts typically store information, settings and data in a database, so this lecture looks briefly at where they are in cPanel and how you can access this information inside them.

cPanel has some built in analytics to track visitors, but you have to turn this on if you want to use it.

For increased security on your site, you can install an SSL certificate which then encrypts information to and from your site. The security tools in cPanel help set this up.

The software section inside cPanel offers some useful tools, like the ability to select the version of PHP your sites use. Let's see what other options there are.

The preferences section allows you to change the look and feel of cPanel, as well as your cPanel password.

Cloudflare is a content delivery network that can help secure and speed up your site.

While you can integrate Cloudflare through cPanel, I prefer to go directly to the Cloudflare site and create an account there. Let's do that and add a domain to the Cloudflare network.

This tutorial looks at the Cloudflare interface. There are a lot of tools built into Cloudflare.

Google Search Console is a free tool provided by Google for webmasters. This video looks at a few of the things you can do with Google Search Console.

This tutorial shows you how to add a site to Google Search Console and verify that you own that site.

The sidebar navigation in Google Search Console can look different depending on where in the GSC you are. This video highlights the difference.

Do you want Google to email you when there is something they think you should know? If so, then make sure this option is enabled.

Within your GSC account, there is a messages section. This is where Google will try to help you with useful information about your website(s).

How does your site look and behave in Google search results? Let's look at the settings.

The search traffic section of GSC contains a lot of information about your site and the traffic that visits. This section also tells you other sites that are linking to yours.

This section of GSC tells you how many of your pages are indexed in Google, and whether Google is being blocked from any resources on your site.

Find out if there are any crawling issues on your site. In other words, does your site help or hinder Googlebot's attempts to learn about your website?

Hopefully you won't have any security issues on your site, but if you do, this is where you will find out ab out them.

Checking which sites link to yours is very important. Links from "bad neighbourhoods" can seriously impact your rankings, so if you find any, you need to take action. This video shows you how to identify these links.

The disavow tool let's us tell Google about bad links to our site that we want to distance ourselves from. Using the links we found in the previous lecture, we can create and submit a "disavow" file.

Google Analytics is a free tool that helps webmasters learn more about the traffic to their websites.

Let's add a site to Google Analytics and setup the tracking so that visits are logged in the system.

Google Analytics has so many features, but these tips will get you started.

Congratulations on finishing the course. If you could spare a few moments, I would love to know how this course could be improved.

This bonus lecture includes links to recommended resources. Those resources may be things already mentioned in the course, or tools that will help you as a webmaster.

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