It is a long time since I've had to do that, maybe as much as 20 years. In those days we got right into the server root, and I mean the rock bottom root, not the 'public_HTML' or 'HTTPdocs' folder that we get into now when logging into the server, and which is called the server root now. But I guess, the necessity to first create the public_HTML folder still exists on some servers.
This server had some limitations, not allowing folders to be created or uploaded via the cpanel, but when we got FileZilla tooled up, we actually got what we needed without having to create any folders ourselves.