Web hosting is a crucial element of the online world. With that in mind, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to learn that more people than ever before have begun to consider the benefits of starting their own web hosting companies. After all, if you know how to make the most of web hosting, you might be able to establish a business that continues to deliver profits and measurable success for as long as the internet lasts (which could be forever!)
With the innovation of new solutions that make web hosting businesses easier to run, such as control panels, single-click installers, and modern software packages, it’s easier than ever for people to host the web business of a lifetime. However, that doesn’t mean that you don’t need to plan ahead for success.
Planning Advice for Web Hosting Businesses
It takes a lot of technical expertise and patience to run a web hosting business. You’ll need to make sure that you’re familiar with the latest platforms and software, and how they work if you want to stay ahead of the game. Here are just a few of the other things you should keep in mind when planning for server success:
1. Are You Going to Lease or Purchase your Servers?
When it comes to buying servers, there are plenty of options available, you can either lease your server from a highly-reputable firm, or get one custom-made by a team. On the other hand, you could also consider buying a reseller hosting package from a big-name webhost like HostGator or GoDaddy. Choosing a hosting provider is one of the most important things you’ll need to do before you can officially launch your own hosting business.
2. What are You Going to do About Customer Support?
If you want to keep your customers happy, then you need to make sure that you can give them the support they need to handle any potential hosting problems in a professional way – without keeping people waiting for hours at a time. Every client requires quick responses and around-the-cloud support, but if you’re thinking of starting your own hosting business, then you’ll need to take extra steps to support your customers.
In general, you’ll need to offer both email support and one-on-one contact to your audience to make sure that they have everything they need to manage urgent issues as quickly as possible. When your parent hosting provider can’t help you out, you’ll need to make sure you have a dedicated support guy available to handle issues and keep your customers happy.
3. Which Control Panel are You Going to Use?
One of the elements that has made it easier for people to design and host their own web server these days, is the development of rich and effective control panel solutions. That means that choosing the right control panel for your company could make or break your business. Choosing your control panel will mean looking for the option that offers the greatest collection of robust and rich features for your business requirements.
4. Can you be Flexible?
When you’re just starting out as a reseller, it’s worth noting that your parent firm for your hosting solutions should be able to offer a range of customisable packages that allows you to create unique market offerings for your audience. If your parent hosting provider doesn’t give you all the flexibility that you need, then you’ll struggle to make your venture successful.
5. What’s the Reputation of the Parent Company Like?
Finally, you’ll need to make sure that you think carefully about the kind of host parenting company you’re going to get involved with. Look for customer reviews and try to find out what other customers have to say about your parent hosting company. If you know that the firm has a reputation for network problems and security issues, then there’s a good chance that you’ll need to look elsewhere, or risk your customers getting frustrated with your service.
Pitfalls to Avoid with Your Hosting Business
Now that you know how to plan for success, you’ll also need to think about the pitfalls you’ll want to stay away from when earning the long-term respect and custom of your consumers. Here are just some of the mistakes that are made when people are first getting into the hosted web business.
1. Choosing a Host That’s Unreliable
The credibility and reliability of your parent host will have a huge impact on your performance as a reseller or private host. However, it can be difficult for you to determine whether your parent host is reliable or not. Start by finding out the upstream score of your provider. Anything that’s under 99.5% is a huge red flag. Remember, poor uptime scores can quickly lead to slow performance and other problems for your client websites.
2. Delayed Customer Support
While it’s not necessarily mandatory for resellers to offer in-house customer support for their hosting customers, it is important for someone who’s running their own hosting service. Delayed customer support, or poor performance can have a negative impact on the relationships that you’re trying to build with your customers. The more time and effort you devote to your support team, the happier your customers will be.
3. Ignoring Branding and Marketing
If you want to establish yourself as a viable host provider, then you need to make sure that you have a solid branding strategy in place, with plenty of marketing solutions. This is particularly important for companies that want to gain visibility in today’s saturated marketplace. Think about how you can leverage available social platforms to market your reselling business, and consider hiring marketing professionals if you need extra help.
4. Offering non-customisable packages
Every business or client will have their own unique needs when they come to you for hosting solutions. Making sure that you can deliver customisable packages is a great way to ensure that you have the edge you need to be competitive in the hosting space.
5. Ignoring Customer Satisfaction
Finally, many design agencies and IT companies look at reseller web hosting as a solution for supplementing their income. However, if you want to succeed in web hosting, then you need to remember that customer satisfaction comes first. While it might not be your main source of income, you need to treat it with the same level of care and attention.