Start Web Hosting Business | How To Start A Web Hosting Company
We are all very familiar with hosting companies. In fact, 99.9% of us have a hosting company for our portfolio sites, personal sites, or blogs. Today I am going to outline a step by step guide how to start your own web hosting company and business.
Step 1. Get A Powerful Back-end
The most important things to keep in mind when creating a web hosting company are your expenses and the time you need to spend on each client. You need to have a back-end that will allow you a lot of room for markup and profit. You also need a back-end that will allow easy client sign-up, with minimal work on your part. This is why I recommend you use a reseller hosting package. You do not need to invest in expensive servers. You do not need to monitor them for down-time and risk losing all your clients if something on your server breaks on Friday night and you fix it on Monday or Tuesday. You do not need to buy expensive cPanel licensing (you are saving $450 per year just on that) and all other software. I suggest using HostGator’s Reseller Hosting, that comes with already prepackaged cPanel, WHMCS client billing software, Fantastico and much more. In case you don’t know what WHMCS is, it’s the all-in-one client billing/support software. It allows you to create invoices, subscriptions, and even has a great built in support ticket system. You get it for free with HostGator reseller hosting, which I think is pretty hard to beat. You can use coupon 25PERCENTSALE to get 25% off your order.
You will want to offer at least several hosting plans to your clients. People always like to have a choice, so offer 2-3 plans. Think about how you want to split the bandwidth/hard drive space that HostGator gives you in your reseller hosting plan.
Step 2. Create A Converting Sales Page
What good is a powerful back-end without a powerful front-end, right? This is why you need to create a very well converting and optimized sales page. Things to keep in mind: a) price. Make sure you set a price that is affordable and competitive; b) put forth the benefits of hosting with you; c) hosting duration – do you want to lock people into a contract, or give them freedom to pay month by month? d) promotions and special offers: give people coupons and incentives to host with you as opposed to another company; e) assure people your hosting is reliable. The 2 most important considerations for people buying hosting are price and reliability. Make sure you touch on those points in your sales page. See my list of Best Hosting Website Designs for inspiration. If you are a web designer, you can design the sales page yourself.
Step 3. Market Your Web Hosting Company
What good are a powerful back-end and front-end when you don’t have clients? This is why, after you create a powerful back-end and front-end, you must market your web hosting business everywhere you can. Put a link in your signature and post on relevant forums (Web Hosting Talk is the #1 hosting forum). Write relevant articles and submit them to article directories (Ezine Articles, GoArticles and others). Build links to your web hosting website. Market yourself on Twitter (see my post on how to get Twitter followers on autopilot), Linkedin and Facebook.
Ultimate Designer Toolkit: 60,000+ Premium Design Items, Only $49!
READY TO TAKE WEB DESIGN SERIOUSLY?
Today, I am giving away Web Design Riches, the ultimate guide on how to run a profitable web design business. Enter your name and email below to get instant access.
Related Posts
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Abiodun (2 years ago)
Nice articles… good work.
Hanan (2 years ago)
Your article is really helpful for my , Thank you .
rossanesimpson (2 years ago)
Great Article and such nice creativity great work i like it thanx for the sharing great article.
Pixeno (2 years ago)
Brilliant article. I think having a powerful backend is very important!
Bronson (2 years ago)
Nice tips, thank you – when it comes to automating account creation which would you recommend WHM Autopilot or WHMCS?
Web Design (2 years ago)
I would recommend WHMCS as majority of people use it. You also can’t beat the fact that it comes for free in the reseller hosting recommended above, but would otherwise cost you at least $250 to buy : )
James Hicks (2 years ago)
Good article. Precisely why I have partnered with the best Premium WordPress Hosting service, Page.ly to provide hosting services.
Hosting India (2 years ago)
My website is under Host Nine hosting packages and I am happy with them. Their packages comes with Free WHMCS and most amazingly with different IP address hosting accounts. I do find this article useful for beginners. There are many other hosts too when a company grows a hosting business need to opt for vps and dedicated as well. So keep researching the net.
Sol Danmeri (2 years ago)
Absolutely and also if you are an internet marketer, affiliate marketer, a full time Blogger like me who needs a multiple of website domains for his different Blogs, its wise to have a reseller account. Funny, I am with Host Nine and there service is really good. No problems at all. Thanks for the article. I read this article as I am on your mailing list. I have unsubscribed to so many mailing lists, but I am happy to continue receiving this gems of wisdom from you. Keep up the good work.
Web Design (2 years ago)
Thank you for your warm words, Sol. Keep up the great work – it is far from easy to earn enough from simply blogging.
Iggy
Jason Chechik - Kwik-Web (2 years ago)
This post was a fantastic read. Thanks for posting
web hosting (2 years ago)
Nice information about starting a web hosting company. An easier way may be to become a reseller.
Tee McClamb (2 years ago)
Excellent post. I’ve recently started offering hosting with my web design services and these tips will come in handy. Thanks!
Ted (2 years ago)
As a web designer, I have always been looking at getting into hosting my client’s websites. I guess my main reservation has been not having enough demand to justify paying the reseller fee every month. But then having a separate website and marketing for that service should close that gap. Thanks for the info.
josh (2 years ago)
I’m a web designer looking to do this as well. How’s it working out for you? When your client asks for hosting advice do you now have the option to say “you could host with me for such and such a price?” and what about support, are you bogged down with support issues?
thanks.
ajay (2 years ago)
very good informaton.thank you webdesigndev..
Bambi Corro III (2 years ago)
Thanks for the info! Currently, I’m hosting with HostGator and no problems at all. And I’m thinking of getting a reseller account to start hosting for others. Cool!
Samu (2 years ago)
nice work.
Web Design (2 years ago)
Hi Olabode,
Great question. At this point, you need to start promoting hosting to either your current or potential clients. For instance, if you have a web design business, you should already have a list of clients who definitely have websites and may be interested in hosting. Contact them and see if they are interested. In addition, you can market web hosting separately through various mediums such as forums, blogs, Yahoo Answers, Facebook, Twitter and more.
Femi Oz (2 years ago)
Great Article.. You just gave me the motivation i’ve been waiting for.. Thnx
Asifa (2 years ago)
Great article especially for newbies on net. Anyway thanks a lot.
Butch V. (2 years ago)
Nice article! This should help me out quite a bit
Eric (2 years ago)
This information is going to really help me set up HostAllDay.Com . Nice Articles!
sowmya (1 year ago)
it is really great i liked it very much
Vusi Mapholisa (1 year ago)
Good stuff!!!
Web Design (1 year ago)
Absolutely love this article! Very very nice
malek (1 year ago)
This is awsome tips.
Colin Crawford (1 year ago)
Nice article and well written. I got a Reseller account so that I could host the websites that I was building as it made sense to do it this way rather than buying individual packages. At least this way I could make more money hosting these websites and give a proper after care service. It also allows me and the client to keep in touch for any future work regarding updates etc.
Warren Kuan (1 year ago)
Wow, I’m so happy to know that, a beginner like us can start doing own web hosting business too…..
Thanks for making it so EASY to follow and understand
Best Regards.
Lori (11 months ago)
Thank you for the information. I just have one question for you. When providing hosting services to clients I have noticed that 24/7 customer support is offered. I spoke with Host Gator about this and they say that the support for someone who has their own hosting service does not come from them, so if not then how would you provide 24/7 to clients?
Web Design (10 months ago)
You can provide email support 24/7 – meaning you will reply to email tickets the same day they are received. This is the most efficient way for a small hosting company to provide support. You can also justify not having a support phone number by stating on your website that providing only email support allows you to offer more competitive pricing. Of course, once your company grows, you can outsource someone to provide both phone and email support so that you don’t have to do anything.
Abhishek (10 months ago)
Hi
I am at present providing video communication solutions through corporate Video production in Delhi. I want to diversified my business in the web-designing and hosting. I want to become Reseller of a good hosting company so that I can book Domains for my clients and can design their websites.
I have done a little bit of research on this I am facing huge problem in understanding technical terms like Domain alias , sub Domains, etc Can any body suggest a book or website that provides useful information on how hosting works, what are domains, what kind of know how a business man should have before starting a website hosting (Reseller) and design services your help will be appreciated
Thanks
Dokto (9 months ago)
re: Abhishek
Try googling any term that seems foreign, strange or confusing. The Google supplied links from that search are generally wonderful. Good luck with your venture, although I am not a fan of PC video…
Conversion Rate Optimization (9 months ago)
Very very interesting your article, I didn’t know that there are resellers for hosting. Thanks
Chris Sawyer (2 weeks ago)
As a new web designer on the block, I found this incredibly helpful. Thank you!