my-e-space
321Hosted.com
fter a good amount of time in the business of web hosting, I have come to realize many things. Learning these things has helped me in my web hosting business My-E-Space.com, more then anything else! It wasn’t any costly SEO company, it wasn’t any overpriced Google or
Yahoo ad program. It was hard work, it was hours and HOURS that turned into days and then weeks of time spent working on the website, editing the website (then editing again), making sure my keyword relevancy was up to par using my favorite
keyword analyzer at Submit Express , checking to make sure my packages were priced to compete with other host’s that offered the same quality services that I provide (not the kiddie host’s that offer 25gb disc space and 200gb bandwidth for $5.00 a month), and also taking care of my clients to ensure they got anything they wanted or needed.
So anyway, let’s get on to what has worked for me. Some of you other host’s may disagree with me, or have had different experiences then I, so again, this is only what worked for me, and is my opinion only.
I started my first web hosting business in November of 2004. I can’t disclose the name of that business due to the agreement of sale, but I can tell you that it was a very successful host, and was on track to be a big player in the web hosting game.I just burnt out and had to sell! I was working 16-20 hours a day taking care of clients via Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AOL, Skype, PHPLive, and any other live chat program I could use, email, and phone. This leads me to my first assessment, and bit of
knowledge to pass on.
1. Support : This is (in my mind) the most important part of a web hosting business, and can make or break a starting business FAST, either way. If you offer TRUE 24x7 support to your client’s, and the support they receive is fast, accurate, and friendly. Your brand (host name and logo) will spread like wildfire, in time, you just have to be consistent with the support. You can’t let tickets lay around because you had to go to school, or you had to mow the lawn, or your girlfriend wouldn’t let you, or you just didn’t feel like dealing with it.
This can prove to be a very difficult task after awhile. The first few customers you get will submit a few tickets a month. Then, when you have a few more, maybe 25, you will start to have tickets, live chats, emails, pre-sales questions, all of it pouring in at once. Then you get up in to the 50-100 client range and you are swamped. This is when you start to loose sleep and begin to burn out quick!
If you have 50-100, or ever 30 or so, you should look into an outsourced hosting support solution.
I have used BobCares[/B] and have found them to be the most professional and reliable for the package they offer resellers, and starts at $24 a month to cover 12 clients 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Some hosts, and customers, frown upon outsourcing support, but until you have the money to hire your own support staff, I suggest you look into outsourcing. Another company I have heard good things about is Root Support, though I haven’t tried them, I have noticed that they have some very good prices, and as I said, good reviews.
So that’s the upside, the bad side is easy. You don’t offer good support, and you find yourself in 3 months telling the 500 FREE hosting clients, and no paid clients that you have, that they need to find another host because you are shutting down.
2. Choosing a host : When you are searching for a reseller you may be tempted by the low prices of some overselling host (run by a 15 yr old kid) that offers the world or, my favorite, “Unlimited”..LOL. You show me a host that has a hard drive with unlimited space, and I’ll show you some pictures of Big Foot that I took in Buck Snort Tennessee!
If you choose a host by price alone you are destine to fail. You will end up with nothing but downtime, nothing to tell your clients when it happens because your host is no where to be found, and when the server IS up, it will be so overloaded that it will run like an epileptic chicken!
I heard it described best on a forum, “There is no perfect host, there is only the host that is perfect for you”. I suggest you look at web hosting Talk.com . Be sure to look in the “Advertisements” section, there are always a few good offers therefor whatever type of hosting you are needing. You can also Google the words “ web host review “. That will bring up hundreds of different resources for use in choosing a web host. This can be quite overwhelming also, so try and be as specific you can in your search terms.
When looking at the prices offered by offered a host, ask yourself a few questions.
A. Does the website look professional, or does it look very unprofessional with little information? Is the contact email a GMail link, or a business link? If a host uses a GMail or other free email service, that would scare me off. This is not always the best way to determine your host, so again, do not base your decision on the website alone either!
B. What type of server specs (CPU, RAM,) does the host say that your account will be held on? If you do some further research, you’ll see that a reliable server with even a single P4 3.0GHz HT server with 1gb RAM is going to cost $150
AT CHEAPEST, and if you go up into the dual CPU servers, the price of a single server can go up to $300 a month EASY.
So, if the host is offering 5gb disc space and 100gb bandwidth for $5 a month, you can be pretty sure you are not getting as good a deal as it may seem!
C. Check their support link, does it even work? If they offer live chat, use it, send them an email and ask questions specific to your needs, ask as many questions as you want, in as many different emails or tickets as you want, it’s a very important decision, be SURE you get what you need from a provider that will GIVE you what you need.
D. Uptime: a lot of hosts offer shared hosting plans for as cheap as $1.00 for the first month. I suggest you sign up and pay for one month. Tell the host what your intentions are, and that you want your account to be placed on the same server that your reseller will be placed on so you can review the resources. Then place a free uptime monitor such as DotUptime.com on it and see what the uptime is like in a 1 month time period. Spending a couple of dollars to make sure you get what you want will save you a TON of headache in the future!
E. Search as many web hosting forums and / or Google pages as you can for “whateverhost”. Look and see what others have to say about the host. But, keep in mind also that no host can please EVERY customer, and some people just can’t be pleased.
F. Finally, is it within your budget? Don’t be afraid to spend some money if you can, but don’t go overboard either. Remember, you have to spend money to make money. I am one to go all out from the start. I believe that the more you put into a GOOD host, the more you get back, and the happier your clients are, in turn attracting more customers. So we have our servers at LiquidWeb.com . They have proven to be the most reliable in terms of managed dedicated servers.
Yahoo ad program. It was hard work, it was hours and HOURS that turned into days and then weeks of time spent working on the website, editing the website (then editing again), making sure my keyword relevancy was up to par using my favorite
keyword analyzer at Submit Express , checking to make sure my packages were priced to compete with other host’s that offered the same quality services that I provide (not the kiddie host’s that offer 25gb disc space and 200gb bandwidth for $5.00 a month), and also taking care of my clients to ensure they got anything they wanted or needed.
So anyway, let’s get on to what has worked for me. Some of you other host’s may disagree with me, or have had different experiences then I, so again, this is only what worked for me, and is my opinion only.
I started my first web hosting business in November of 2004. I can’t disclose the name of that business due to the agreement of sale, but I can tell you that it was a very successful host, and was on track to be a big player in the web hosting game.I just burnt out and had to sell! I was working 16-20 hours a day taking care of clients via Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, AOL, Skype, PHPLive, and any other live chat program I could use, email, and phone. This leads me to my first assessment, and bit of
knowledge to pass on.
1. Support : This is (in my mind) the most important part of a web hosting business, and can make or break a starting business FAST, either way. If you offer TRUE 24x7 support to your client’s, and the support they receive is fast, accurate, and friendly. Your brand (host name and logo) will spread like wildfire, in time, you just have to be consistent with the support. You can’t let tickets lay around because you had to go to school, or you had to mow the lawn, or your girlfriend wouldn’t let you, or you just didn’t feel like dealing with it.
This can prove to be a very difficult task after awhile. The first few customers you get will submit a few tickets a month. Then, when you have a few more, maybe 25, you will start to have tickets, live chats, emails, pre-sales questions, all of it pouring in at once. Then you get up in to the 50-100 client range and you are swamped. This is when you start to loose sleep and begin to burn out quick!
If you have 50-100, or ever 30 or so, you should look into an outsourced hosting support solution.
I have used BobCares[/B] and have found them to be the most professional and reliable for the package they offer resellers, and starts at $24 a month to cover 12 clients 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
Some hosts, and customers, frown upon outsourcing support, but until you have the money to hire your own support staff, I suggest you look into outsourcing. Another company I have heard good things about is Root Support, though I haven’t tried them, I have noticed that they have some very good prices, and as I said, good reviews.
So that’s the upside, the bad side is easy. You don’t offer good support, and you find yourself in 3 months telling the 500 FREE hosting clients, and no paid clients that you have, that they need to find another host because you are shutting down.
2. Choosing a host : When you are searching for a reseller you may be tempted by the low prices of some overselling host (run by a 15 yr old kid) that offers the world or, my favorite, “Unlimited”..LOL. You show me a host that has a hard drive with unlimited space, and I’ll show you some pictures of Big Foot that I took in Buck Snort Tennessee!
If you choose a host by price alone you are destine to fail. You will end up with nothing but downtime, nothing to tell your clients when it happens because your host is no where to be found, and when the server IS up, it will be so overloaded that it will run like an epileptic chicken!
I heard it described best on a forum, “There is no perfect host, there is only the host that is perfect for you”. I suggest you look at web hosting Talk.com . Be sure to look in the “Advertisements” section, there are always a few good offers therefor whatever type of hosting you are needing. You can also Google the words “ web host review “. That will bring up hundreds of different resources for use in choosing a web host. This can be quite overwhelming also, so try and be as specific you can in your search terms.
When looking at the prices offered by offered a host, ask yourself a few questions.
A. Does the website look professional, or does it look very unprofessional with little information? Is the contact email a GMail link, or a business link? If a host uses a GMail or other free email service, that would scare me off. This is not always the best way to determine your host, so again, do not base your decision on the website alone either!
B. What type of server specs (CPU, RAM,) does the host say that your account will be held on? If you do some further research, you’ll see that a reliable server with even a single P4 3.0GHz HT server with 1gb RAM is going to cost $150
AT CHEAPEST, and if you go up into the dual CPU servers, the price of a single server can go up to $300 a month EASY.
So, if the host is offering 5gb disc space and 100gb bandwidth for $5 a month, you can be pretty sure you are not getting as good a deal as it may seem!
C. Check their support link, does it even work? If they offer live chat, use it, send them an email and ask questions specific to your needs, ask as many questions as you want, in as many different emails or tickets as you want, it’s a very important decision, be SURE you get what you need from a provider that will GIVE you what you need.
D. Uptime: a lot of hosts offer shared hosting plans for as cheap as $1.00 for the first month. I suggest you sign up and pay for one month. Tell the host what your intentions are, and that you want your account to be placed on the same server that your reseller will be placed on so you can review the resources. Then place a free uptime monitor such as DotUptime.com on it and see what the uptime is like in a 1 month time period. Spending a couple of dollars to make sure you get what you want will save you a TON of headache in the future!
E. Search as many web hosting forums and / or Google pages as you can for “whateverhost”. Look and see what others have to say about the host. But, keep in mind also that no host can please EVERY customer, and some people just can’t be pleased.
F. Finally, is it within your budget? Don’t be afraid to spend some money if you can, but don’t go overboard either. Remember, you have to spend money to make money. I am one to go all out from the start. I believe that the more you put into a GOOD host, the more you get back, and the happier your clients are, in turn attracting more customers. So we have our servers at LiquidWeb.com . They have proven to be the most reliable in terms of managed dedicated servers.
