Web Hosting

How to Start a Web Hosting Company

Hello! I’m here to take you step-by-step on how to start a web hosting business. If you’re already familiar with the skills and workload required to run a successful hosting company, sure, skip to the next section! The purpose of this introduction is to introduce you, the reader, to what you need to start your own hosting company.

First, a definition

Web hosting is the business of providing storage space and easy access to all total types of websites. It is located in a fiercely competitive industry, yet it can be massively profitable if done right. A hosting business will rent a certain amount of bandwidth and storage space, for a certain amount of time, for a fee. The money you make as a business owner comes from the difference between the costs of operating your servers and customer service (or reseller costs) and the amount you charge your customers.

Ultimately your decision to start your own hosting business should depend on your motivations, technical knowledge, and the amount of workload you can handle.

For example, people have many types of motivations for starting a business. Some people want financial freedom, others want a source of passive income, and still others do it for the challenge of facing a problem. Your motivations for starting a hosting business should be focused and clear. Due to the large workload involved in running an online service based business, it is very difficult to operate a hosting business as a source of passive income. At a minimum, operating a hosting business requires extensive knowledge of web design. You should have a working knowledge of HTML, CSS and PHP – enough to create a visually stunning and SEO optimized website to take payments and allow customer logins. For the more ambitious reader who wants to operate their own servers, you will need a lot of experience with object oriented programming.

Starting a hosting business also requires a significant time commitment. To get started you will need to spend many hours designing, testing, and marketing your website. You will also spend much time on a daily basis maintaining your website, providing all total types of customer support, and processing payments methods.. You must be willing to spend a few hours a day working on your business at first. Eventually, if everything goes right, your business will become a full-time job with great pay.

Best Reseller Web Hosting Companies

1. InMotionHosting = Best Value and Reliable

2. GreenGeeks = Green Reseller Hosting

3. HostGator = Best Reseller Hosting

4. BlueHost = Trusted Reseller Hosting

5. HostPapa = Canadian Reseller Hosting

6. JustHost = Trusted Reseller Hosting

7. CoolHandle = Trusted Reseller Hosting

8. LunarPages = Affordable Reseller Hosting

9. Site5 = Cloud Reseller Hosting

10. MochaHost = Affordable Reseller Hosting

Knowing The Market

Web hosting has traditionally been a vast and very competitive industry. Niche markets in the industry are few and far between, and we’ve found that most companies compete on price and customer service.

Some of the largest web hosting companies have revenues in the millions of dollars. You may be familiar with some of them, such as Hostgator, GoDaddy, Bluehost, InMotion Hosting, Webhostinghub, etc. All of these companies have thousands of servers, dedicated 24/7 support staff, and years of business experience. Small startups like your future business will find it extremely difficult to compete with these giants.

Then comes the vast array of small to medium-sized hosting companies. The word small is used with caution here, as the average company in this category may have hundreds of servers and dedicated support staff. It is more difficult for these companies to stand out, primarily due to the number of competitors in the category. To stand out as a small to medium-sized webhost, you’ll usually need something unique, whether it’s a name (like “A Small Orange”), affordable prices, or great customer service.

The last category will essentially be the category in which you will find your future business. This is micro/startup hosting company category. In general, companies in this category are usually reseller hosting companies trying to carve out a small niche in the USD16 billion domestic web hosting market. Many of these businesses will fail to attract any customers and even more will go bust after few customers try their services.

http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/internet-hosting-services.html

The most important rule here is to have a business that offers something unique to your customers and pair it with extensive marketing so potential customers know your name. The best example here is the niche market. By positioning yourself as being directly associated with a niche market you are able to establish yourself as an expert in that field in a way no mass-market company ever could and this The market is incredibly attractive to customers. You are also able to focus your customer service on the needs of that niche market, cutting support costs but increasing quality at the same time.

For example, the niche areas the host wants to target:

• Geographic region (e.g. local server)

• Linux/Windows Hosting

• Small Business Hosting

• Blog hosting

• Hosting for music content

• Photography/hosting for photographers

• Green Hosting

• Weddings

• non profit organization

• Restaurant

There are several benefits of choosing a niche market:

1. You can reduce costs in niche related things.

2. You can focus your marketing efforts only on customers in the niche.

3. You can sell affiliate products like WordPress plugins and website themes in your niche.

4. Being a niche market host removes the nuances in a mature market. For example, niche sales grow faster than general hosting sales, and do not require constant investment in branding and additional features.

5. You have a greater chance of success when competing with relatively fewer competitors within a niche market. The niche market also has some drawbacks, such as an inherently small revenue pool and limited room for growth. However, in general, in a large and mature industry like web hosting, it is better to start with a niche market and focus on providing quality service. Take a few days to think about your ideal hosting niche, do a lot of research. Once you’re ready, get started

Various steps you need to take to get started

Step 1: Pre-Startup Research

Once you’ve decided on your desired niche, it’s time to do some research. You need to know about the top 5 competitors in your hosting niche, the services they offer and the money they charge. A spreadsheet is recommended for this purpose – you can use the spreadsheet below as a quick guide.

Step 2: Deciding the Core of Your Business

When it comes to the basics of web hosting business, there are three types: 1. Reseller Hosting 2. Home Server 3. Datacenter Colocation

This guide advises the beginning web hosting entrepreneur to get started with a reseller hosting system. There are many benefits to starting a reseller business, including simplicity and low costs of operation. The technical know-how is basic with a reseller business and becomes quite complex with in-home servers or data center rentals.

Reseller Hosting

Cost of entry: Minimum cost of entry is $9.87/month, possibly around $30/month plus advertising Reseller hosting is a form of web hosting business where the owner, in this case you, purchases wholesale hosting services from a larger company, and offers said hosting services at a higher cost to the consumer. The Services are performed by “Resellers”. In this case, the money you make will come from the difference between the prices. Reseller hosting can take many forms. For example, you can rent a dedicated server from a hosting company as a reseller, or you can resell the shared hosting services offered by the company by signing up for a reseller account. Let’s take a look at the individual companies and their respective reseller services: This data has been collected by WebHostingGeeks from the top 10 rankings for reseller hosts for their cheapest packages.

Read Also: