Hosting is tough - but getting worse

"It seems as though people are no longer looking for "Quality Hosting" but more so based on price ( cheap ) but expect the whole world from Support.
But if you sell to cheap, nobody will trust you, but if you sell to expensive, nobody will look at you - so what's the happy medium? What's a small business to do in an industry that's rapidly changing every day?"

This is so true it almost hurts. I believe we need to pave our own way. It is hard as competition is really big, but I think that satisfied customers and word of mouth are the answer.
 
cwvps said:
"It seems as though people are no longer looking for "Quality Hosting" but more so based on price ( cheap ) but expect the whole world from Support.
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That's because the term "quality hosting" is meaningless. If your site works on a $2 plan just as well as on a $10 plan, why pay $10? Customer's just want it to work. "Quality" is just a marketing term.
 
Collabora said:
That's because the term "quality hosting" is meaningless. If your site works on a $2 plan just as well as on a $10 plan, why pay $10? Customer's just want it to work. "Quality" is just a marketing term.
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But the cost you list for a plan also covers the support you provide. I can reduce the costs for my plans, but it would mean clients get no support. Also what you charge also has to cover server costs,software licence costs, staff wages etc.

When people look for hosting they look at the cost and nothing else, which is a shame because if they did look at everything on offer for that price then a lot of the fly by night hosts would not exist
 
Start with your friends and relatives, I'm positive that atleast one of them will recommend you. My point is, start with the one that is really close to you.
 
AsiaHostOnline said:
Start with your friends and relatives, I'm positive that atleast one of them will recommend you. My point is, start with the one that is really close to you.
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family and friend will be bias, so even if you were bad , they would say you were good, so not a good way to get recommended
 
Hosting business is competitive and i think the best way for a new hosting company to survive is by providing web design services within her local vicinity. this will help a lot to survive the first few years and gradual publicity. That is my own take.
 
1. Make ajustments is survive, study the market if customers want unmanaged vm provide it.
2. If you can't / don't want sell at cheap prices increase quality of service.
 
it gets tougher by the year, but we have been here since 1999 and to DwebConsults never offered a web design service. we do have a client who does web design and has a page on our site if anyone wants web design.
But as more people use Wordpress then you can offer an install and configure service, many free WP termplates etc. can be found online
 
It has been harder to attract new clients over the past year, but we have found that if we keep up the research as to what customers want and the current prices in the market it makes a big difference.
 
From what I see, shared hosting will always be around, but maybe it will evolve to the likes of VM, ie semi-dedicated managed hosting that includes cpanel management in their VM.

Companies like Digital Ocean really make shared hosting look bad!
 
It is very tough as so many people are doing it. The only way I have found to get customers is to post on every forum you can find to do with web hosting, it get your brand out their.
 
GCJHOSTING said:
It is very tough as so many people are doing it. The only way I have found to get customers is to post on every forum you can find to do with web hosting, it get your brand out their.
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If you already have some customers consider getting them to make recommendations for you. (With or without intensives) They have the power to unlock many more potential customers into your business.
 
I've been in this business 15 years - and yes the market has grown tough - at least as long as you appeal to the masses. As others have said - you have to appeal to niche markets. That's where you will create a true following. When everyone started racing for the bottom dollar - that's when the market started to shift.

The next 5 years will be interesting - especially as more of the mainstream hosting shifts to the big tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Google...

Just my two cents
 
If you are going to be a carbon copy of most shared hosting companies out there i.e. Linux, WHMCS, CPanel, Unlimited Shared Hosting then you will find it difficult to find customers as most people will opt for the known brand.

I think more businesses need to brand themselves on their unique features and not why they are like everyone else.
 
Usually if you look after your customers, you get new ones by word of mouth.

You can spend a lot of money and effort trying to attract new customers, when you really should be ensuring that your current customers are getting the best experience, then new customers will find their way to you.

You definitely can't lower your pricing to get ahead, low prices attract the novices who need more help and don't yet realise that help costs money. (I don't mind giving people help, as long as they are paying their way, it's our job, and we love it).
The race to the bottom means you will get less money, more helpdesk tickets and eventually you'll get overwhelmed and that's when the bad reviews can creep in.

We try to sell our services at a reasonable price, so we don't have to overcrowd the server.
This keeps our helpdesk fairly controllable, increasing customer experience and reducing churn.

But one thing to think about. You may have to let your "bad" customers go.
The "bad" customer is the one who always seems to have problems.
Problems like "my site doesn't load on my browser", but it loads on your ie, chrome, firefox, safari and opera, but refuses to flush their browser cache, or pretends they have, when clearly they haven't.
The one who constantly gets their wordpress compromised because they insist on using that 5 year old theme etc.
The one who constantly trips your outgoing spam checking with emails sent from their home, but insists they are not spamming.
Every host has them, you know who they are.

A bad customer can cost you more than you make from them, if they do that they are taking away from your other customers. So think of them as doing your other customers harm, rather than you failing.
Thinking of "bad" customers in this way helps me not worry about dumping them.

Without your bad tennants, your other customers will have a better experience as you answer their tickets faster, have more time to give more precise and explanatory answers. Pruning bad customers may be more effective in the short-term at making your hosting profitable than any SEO or advertising you do.
 
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