So folks. I have a question. I have zero customers. I've been up for two weeks. I listed myself at all sorts of hosting directories, submitted to search engines, and bought some AdWords ads at google. I've got some visitors, but no sales. Got any tips? How long did you take?

Perhaps,
you could tell us what your site URL is, so that we could check if something is wrong with it, since you have visits...

NOTICE! This is not an advertisement. In the event that you are searching for a service, immediately redirect your eyes and click your browsers back button to prevent accidental viewing of URL ;)

http://www.spurvus.com/

You may remember me from such users as Spurvus.

EDIT: Hmm... "Participants may not solicit the membership for feedback or suggestions on their product or services." I'll just be moving along then.

Even though you have visitors, it is not an easy task to get customers. Normal business clients do not signup with the latest company who offers the latest and greatest features just because they are new and they have a web site and ads.

You need to get your name out there. You need to make some friends in the right places. Offer some discounted services to the right people. Make some partnerships. Prove that you are a good hosting company, NOT the latest scam.

Most successful business owners will tell you that they had a few key customers when they started off. This may mean taking an extra step or two and getting an important client, a client who you can take care of, and a client who will help your business grow.

Good luck. :)

I think you should edit the post and go to the review forum and ask there.

Vincent - any suggestions on how to do that?

.. and from a design perspective, <align=center> your table and give it a dynamic as opposed to fixed width <width="77%" for example vs. width=575> note that this will also change your cloudtop.jpg background so you'd just need to make that image larger.. then add more content on the front page and get a more distinctive logo. That'll make it go well with any size browser and first impressions will be much more productive :) (I haven't gone past your front page yet)

This should be moved to the review forum. And I'm going into reviewing anyway since I have nothing better to do (at least that I'm willing to do). That holiday special image at the top should be a gif since it's not a ton of colors. This would make it look a lot better and take out all the cruddy "wrinkles" from on and around stuff. Same with the top logo. There's also the big empty gap on the side.

Now you list plans, but not prices. I'm sure more people would be interested if you showed the prices on the front page right below the plans. Next add a bit of space between the plans and the line right below'em. Also, just a curiousity, how often are you on the human click thing? It says your offline now and if you aren't on it that often, might be good to just kill it so you don't have "offline" visible on the page (it's not the best word to have up when selling a hopefully "online" service).

*Usually* online a lot. Not tonight though. Working on other suggestions. I've got an idea for a logo. More content adding to front page: ?. I have no idea what I should add. Suggestions? Hmm news (gotta make some up ;) ), put the plans into bordered boxes, add a "domain search" box, add a few boxes (control panel or something). Guess I don't need suggestions anymore, at least for that part.

Just so you know, I started the sign-up process, and typed in akjhwewae.com, and it said that it wasn't available, even though it is.

Something wrong with that?

And like others mentioned, your site isn't real attractive. But it's okay, in my opinion. I don't think it would scare any newbies away, but maybe some webmasters.

You might start out making some cold calls to your local businesses, if you have time. Although we already had customers when we did this, it did help to get more customers. "Hi, do you have a web site that I can go to to get more information on your business? ... Well do you think you ever will? ... I actually work for bitServe and can help you get setup. Did you know that XXX.com is still available?"

We started doing domain name parking with URL and email forwarding back in 1997 before register.com started doing it for free. When we went to web hosting, it was a bit easier to get customers. We already had some lined up.

Anyway, why should it be moved to the requests forum? He/she didn't ask for you to review his/her web site.

Good luck!

You should try handing out lots leaflets. I found this works a treat and doesn't cost much apart from the cost of a new toner for your printer :D

Well, I'm a consumer instead of a webhosting company, so I'll address your question from a consumer's perspective.

I would not sign up with your company for a number of reasons:

1. Setup fee - too many other companies do not charge one for me to be happy about paying one. I could understand if you were selling dedicated servers, but it appears your plans are for shared hosting.

2. No SSH available in the standard plan - 'nuff said

3. Relative lack of resources for the price. For around the $15 a month pricepoint, I would expect to get at least 8 gigs transfer and 200 megs storage.

Please accept this in the spirit of constructive criticism. I wish you and your business well; it just seems that you've not done enough in my eyes to make me take a second look at you over another host. Once I get interested, I would next check your customer references as well as try to get an idea of your uptime and stability before marking a decision to buy from you or not. (I realize you're a new company.)

Please don't be offended. :)

I think you should take a peek in the "offers" forum and buy a professional website template. When I *finally* decided that I could not produce the professional design that I needed...I paid a real designer and my sales dramatically increased.

Your site looks like you can't afford to hire a real designer. Therefore, it doesn't give much confidence that you will be around for long.

Again, please do NOT be offended - I just trying to save you the time I wasted on trying to do it myself!
:)

--Tina

Originally posted by AlexNguyen
...

3. Relative lack of resources for the price. For around the $15 a month pricepoint, I would expect to get at least 8 gigs transfer and 200 megs storage.

...

You have to see what kind of customers are you after. There is noting wrong with your plans. There is something wrong with your design.

hmm, you should try spacing out everything, especially on your plans page as the images and text touching each other. Same with your frontpage. There should be a gap between the edges and your content.

The best way to do this, IMO, is by using CSS. Combine this with Javascript to get dHTML. This allows you to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things :D

AffordableHost: Actually, I'm already doing that. But I gotta have something for now.

AlexNguyen:
1. Then they shall die.
2. *shrug*
3. How about $10?

bitserve:
That's odd. I'm not having a problem. Nice idea with the calling thing. Of course they may become enraged. But I guess that's something I'll have to live with. And you're right, I didn't ask for a design review. But I guess that's what I'm getting a lot of here.

Locutus:
Ha.

(Although, I (and others, apparently) sent money to ezmerchantaccounts.com. Beware the design.)

Also I'll be adding some table padding on the plans page.

EDIT: Done.

Yep, pad up your tables to 4 or 5. That should put a gap between everything :)

1. Then they shall die.

Well, I don't buy that. Setting up an account for a shared server takes only a couple of minutes, if even that. Setup fees are EXTREMELY hard to justify in my book, unless there is some type of licensing cost for control panels that the web host has to front load to the customer.

2. *shrug*

It's certainly your choice. All things considered, I prefer to have SSH access, and if I can't get it, I'll have an awfully good reason to go elsewhere unless the web host has some other compelling reason for me to choose them.

3. How about $10?

That's more in line with what I would expect. Of course, I tend to research a bit more than maybe some others would. I'm sure there are people who would happily pay $20 for what you are offering; the only question is how do you get them?

I would argue that people who frequent WHT are perhaps more savvy about what they can get for their budget, and they WILL care more about the features of your plan along with your service and stability.

I agree

You pay what you get

I suggest to get a web designer or buy web template like people suggested :)

Originally posted by AlexNguyen
...
I would argue that people who frequent WHT are perhaps more savvy about what they can get for their budget, and they WILL care more about the features of your plan along with your service and stability.

I agree. They all know that for $1.99 a month they can get everything under the sun. But I still wonder why they come back here 2 months later telling everyone that hostadc.com it the worst host they have ever been with... and when they are asked how much they paid they say "$1.99 and I got 500 Mb disk space, 30 gigs of bandwidth. Is there another host that will give me the same? But this time I only want to pay $1 per month.":rolleyes:

I agree. They all know that for $1.99 a month they can get everything under the sun. But I still wonder why they come back here 2 months later telling everyone that hostadc.com it the worst host they have ever been with... and when they are asked how much they paid they say "$1.99 and I got 500 Mb disk space, 30 gigs of bandwidth. Is there another host that will give me the same? But this time I only want to pay $1 per month."

I don't think that's true of the people who regularly browse WHT at all. You're referring to people who pop in spur of the moment from a google search to complain about their current host, and then, sure, they may have unrealistic expectations.

People like me want value for my dollar. I don't mind paying a premium for service and reliability, but I need some assurance that I will get it. In the case of a little-known or new web host, price and features are often the only factors that will get new customers in the door. Once they are with you, you keep them by demonstrating superior service.

You CAN charge a higher price if you offer a superior product. Unfortunately in the world of shared hosting that's a murky road to tread and analyse. Is 99.75% uptime worth an extra $5 a month to me over a 98.75% uptime? I dunno. That's a decision each consumer has to make for himself. I suspect if I really NEEDED the utmost in reliability, I'd have my own server and my own technician to oversee it. Which brings me back to my proposition: there's too much competition and good competition at that for hosts to be able to get by with charging setup fees for shared hosting. Said hosts must also offer competitive packages to thrive in the shared hosting market.

Alex,

Well we stopped charging setup fees the end of november and this month (mostly because we ended our commissions with commission junction, the losers), and we've received fewer orders than normal. Could be because everyone is busy holiday shopping? Setup fees are reasonable, whether it costs you that much to set up an account or not. Personally, I think I should make at least $200 a day. That's $25/hour. If it takes me 10 minutes to bill you and set up your account, that's right around a $5 setup fee just for my labor. Setup fees accomplish a lot. They prevent "flaky" customers (customers that move around a lot), and they help to pay for the costs of gaining new customers. The "no setup" vs. "setup" battle has been discussed way too many times in the short time I've been coming here. Hosts go both ways. Appletreat is going for setup fees.

Newbies will be fine with appletreat's prices and design, if they are sold on it. Webmasters are always going to shop around and possibly will find something "better".

Anyway, appletreats prices aren't the cheapest around, but they're lower than most. Definitely cheaper than mindspring/earthlink, at&t, and verio.

You don't need to undersell everyone to get customers. It's a proven fact, and my humble opinion.

Originally posted by bitserve
Alex,

Well we stopped charging setup fees the end of november and this month (mostly because we ended our commissions with commission junction, the losers), and we've received fewer orders than normal. Could be because everyone is busy holiday shopping? Setup fees are reasonable, whether it costs you that much to set up an account or not. Personally, I think I should make at least $200 a day. That's $25/hour. If it takes me 10 minutes to bill you and set up your account, that's right around a $5 setup fee just for my labor. Setup fees accomplish a lot. They prevent "flaky" customers (customers that move around a lot), and they help to pay for the costs of gaining new customers. The "no setup" vs. "setup" battle has been discussed way too many times in the short time I've been coming here. Hosts go both ways. Appletreat is going for setup fees.

Newbies will be fine with appletreat's prices and design, if they are sold on it. Webmasters are always going to shop around and possibly will find something "better".

Anyway, appletreats prices aren't the cheapest around, but they're lower than most. Definitely cheaper than mindspring/earthlink, at&t, and verio.

You don't need to undersell everyone to get customers. It's a proven fact, and my humble opinion.

Mark (Bitserve)

http://www.bitserve.com/termsofuse.html

Copyright?

Well we stopped charging setup fees the end of november and this month (mostly because we ended our commissions with commission junction, the losers), and we've received fewer orders than normal. Could be because everyone is busy holiday shopping?

Hey, Mark.

Maybe. I certainly don't think you've seen a drop in orders because you've ended your setup fee. Do you?

You don't need to undersell everyone to get customers. It's a proven fact, and my humble opinion.

I agree. In fact I say as much in my post above. The key is to make your service stand out from the rest through service and reliability. However, I wonder if the big boys like Verio, etc would be able to sustain and grow themselves in today's market with their current plans? Could it be that they are big due to being first market movers and that they will stay big due to general inertia?

Originally posted by Samuel Mann


Mark (Bitserve)

http://www.bitserve.com/termsofuse.html

Copyright?

Hanh?

I totally agree with Afforabhost(sp). Honestly you can edit the site now and again, but in reality they do not make a huge change. There are people here who offer templates(rylec) and they do help. I went 3 months with crap designs and this was the best choice I ever made.