Easy way to customize our website templates

Please note this and any type of web design is not supported by HostGator.

Although this article is intended for beginners, you must know how to use FTP to upload files. HostGator will help you with the FTP if you contact us.

HostGator's 4500 downloadable templates sure look tempting, but how can one use them without advanced knowledge of HTML or web design?

The HTML editor included with cPanel is a perfect solution. It's easy to use and does all the page coding for you.

How do I start?

1. The first thing you need to do is download a template. You can select from our site at templates.hostgator.com, or you can download these from inside your cPanel.

   Shared customers look under HostGator Links > Website Templates.

   Reseller customers must enable this from WHM > Feature Manager and then create or edit an existing feature list, and choose Website Templates. [more details]

2. From your personal computer, extract the zip file before proceeding. [screenshot]
3. Open an FTP client and navigate to the new folder (local files). Go inside Without_fl and html. Here you will find the website files you need.
4. Connect the FTP to your server and then navigate the other side (hosting files) of your FTP client into your public_html folder. If you are publishing an addon or subdomain, then you need to also go inside that domain's root folder. [screenshot]
5. Select all of the files (right click and Select All). Then upload all of the files (right click and Upload.) [screenshot]
6. Ready? Many files will start to upload. Please wait patiently until they are all done.
7. Close your FTP client and login to cPanel.
8. Click the File Manager icon.
9. On the pop-up, choose to go to the Web Root (public_html/www) folder. Hit the Go button.
10. Here you should see cgi-bin and the files which you uploaded. If you published to an addon or subdomain, then you need to go inside that domain's root folder.
11. Look for index.html in the main list [screenshot]. Right click the icon for index.html and choose HTML Edit from the drop down.
12. Now you have a WYSIWYG editor which makes web design seem so simple.

Tip: To insert images onto your page, you must upload them to the public_html directory first.

1. Inside the file manager, go to the top and click the Upload icon.
2. On the new window, click a Browse button and locate the images on your PC.
3. Double click the image when you find it, and wait for the blue bar to reach 100% Complete.
4. Click "Back to /home/your-user-name/public_html". The image file will now appear along with your index.html file.
5. Go back to the HTML Edit tool and click the Insert Image icon [screenshot].
6. Check the box for your image and click the Insert button at the bottom.
7. Go to the top left of the editor and click the Save icon (second from left).
8. Go preview your site. Make changes as needed.