Web hosting business is one of the best businesses of all time. And why not? Everyone is taking their business online and you will be able to help them reach their customers. While there is a plenty of competition in the web hosting business, if done right, you can easily outrank your rivals. For instance, you can start a cheap reseller hosting business to bring in new revenue streams.
Here are ten steps to follow when starting your web hosting business.
1 – Determine Your Business Goals
In order to compete with giant hosting companies, you need to first determine your business goals. It is also vital to differentiate yourself from your competitors to attract more customers. It could be premium customer support, additional service like web design, customized pricing plans, or targeting a specific community.
2 – Find your target audience
Now that you have identified your business goals, it’s time to find your target audience. Since you are starting a hosting business, your ideal customers would be startups, bloggers, freelancers, and small and mid-sized businesses. This will help you attract the right audience and increase your site’s traffic.
3 – Offer different server types
When it comes to web hosting, each business has different requirements. Some require shared hosting while others require virtual private servers. To survive and thrive in the web hosting business, you must offer different server types.
4 – Analyze your competitors
It is vital to check who your direct competitors are, the services they offer, and their pricing plans. This will help you create a business plan that helps you stay ahead of them and attract more and more customers. Also, make sure to analyze their promotional activities (including their email marketing, social media activities, and PPC.
5 – Create the right pricing plan
Since web hosting businesses rely on subscription businesses, it is essential to set the pricing right. If not, you will not only struggle to attract customers, but also retain them. At the same time, you must also offer the right features in each of your plans. For instance, the right bandwidth, disk space, free domain name, or free SSL certificate. Check what your competitors are offering in each of their plans, and try to offer more than that.
6 – Select the right reseller hosting
There are several hosting companies in the market that offer reseller hosting. If you are choosing a reseller, make sure to pick the right one. This means it should include someone that offers the best possible quality service at a reasonable price. Also, make sure that they offer 24/7 support. If not, you might see a decrease in customer satisfaction over time.
7 – Provide Round the Clock technical support
Technical support is one of the most essential aspects of web hosting. Because not every webmaster has all the technical knowledge required to manage web hosting. Therefore, you need to offer round the clock technical support to ensure a high customer satisfaction rate.
8 – Have a marketing plan
Now that you have created a business plan, it is time to build a marketing plan. Even if you offer the best possible plans and services, if your ideal customers don’t know about it, you will struggle to find customers. Make sure to integrate email marketing, social media marketing, PPC marketing, and SEO.
9 – Give People a Reason to Buy
With more than hundreds of web hosting providers, why would people choose you? You must give them a reason to buy from you. It could be premium customer service, higher bandwidth, or free SSL certificate. Analyze your customers’ pain points to understand what they need the most and offer them that for free (if possible).
10 – Provide Dedicated IP
It is very essential to provide a dedicated IP address to your customers. Most providers offer a single IP to multiple websites. So, if anything goes wrong with one of the domains, all other domains will be affected, creating havoc. Therefore, it is recommended to provide a dedicated IP to all your customers.
Conclusion
Starting a web hosting business is not as simple as it seems. You need to research your competitors, give people a reason to buy, and offer round the clock technical support. With these ten tips mentioned in the article, you will be easily able to start your web hosting business.
