I'm plan on starting a free web host for sites dealing with gaming, cars, sports, etc. Two part question here:

1. Making money - Other than the standard banner on their page deal, what else can I do to make money? I've thought of e-mail newsletter with advetisments and seach programs, but they just don't appeal to me. Short of selling my own advertiment, which I plan to do if this idea is popular, how else can I make money?

2. Promotion - Where, besides the search engines, can a free web host promote? I spend alot of time at most of the popular forums and will submit to http://www.freewebspace.net , but where else can I go to promote my service, other than link exchanges of course.

Hi,

Free hosting company come and go. So do not espect too much to make a lot of money from them. Usually newbie would go with big boys like geocities, hypermart or virtualave.
These days it's hard to find CPM ad company which support free hosting services.
So I guess you will depend on CPC / per lead banner campaign.

Ok, I will try to answer your questions :D
1. Beside make money from banner campaign, you can sell newsletter (e-zines) ad slot. Send mass mail to all user contains with tips and tricks for webmasters (especially for newbie :) )
2. The best way to promote your services is using ad broker such as CJ, Clicktrade etc. Of course you will spend some money to do this. :p

Hope this help.
Thx.
Soda

Also affiliate programs (which I really don't put too much belief in, but in some cases it might work). You know, books on webdesign/linux, ? sold at site, etc. Serices, etc. Once you get something going (or to research the thought of starting this), check out freewebspace.net. There's a few people who run FWPs and maybe they can give you tips on revenue. Forums there as well to read and ask questions.

Some kind of forum maybe. Give people a reason to come back.

Not to fond of the per sale click, so I won't use that. I'm planning on having just a general forum relating to the subject of the majority of the sites on my main page, so that should keep some poeple coming back. I hope to find a good CPM in the future. Hopefully I'll be able to get a decent rate since all the sites are in a targeted category. I'll probaly set up some sort of mailing list, but for the majority will rely on CPC. Once I get a few sites hosted I hope to be making near $225/wk. For people who have done this, is that to much to expect? Or hopefully not?

Hello
My FWP makes money from affilliate programs for free webmaster tools. Everything from Everyone.net through to Pollit.com and X-drive.

It makes about 100 dollars per month from 8000 members so don't expect to make a living from it.

Gordon

Thats horribe :(. Well below what I was expecting to make, which was a low estimate to start with. Not sure what I'm going to do now.

Here is a question you should ask yourself:

What makes my host more unique than the others in order to keep my clients happy. A free Pop3 Email address? Domain Name hosting? Amount of space?

I have a somewhat unique link exchange setup. They can have as many POP3's as they need (within reason). Domains or subdomain hoasting is available. Probaly start out with 200MB space. Anyone have any more ideas on how to get my site noticed once it opens?

You may offer free email address and build mailing lists that you can sell

Yanni
http://www.hosting24-7.com
Reseller Accounts Starting at $3.95/mo
No Set up fee, Free Trial

Do you know of any free scripts to offer e-mail? I don't want a remotely hosted program like everyone.net and can't pay $500 dollars for a professional one. I've checked everywhere and have yet to find one. Just wonderin if anyone else knows of such a script?

My friend,

Because I love you and all (as a brotha/sista) I want to let you in on a lil secret. Free webhosting is a NIGHTMARE!!!!!!!!

Back in the day I did free webhosting. Things were cool. I made some good money. I learned how to get 600 clients onto a PC running a cable modem, (back when they were considered, and ran like T1's, well almost anyways ;)

You are usually helping 600 users run porn, warez and other somesuch sites that banner companies don't want on anyways.

You will have to come in with a lot of capital too because unles syouw ant to kill yourself, you will need people to work with you.

You will need to be up and at the server 18 hours a day to make sure no one is doing mp3 download sites and stealing all the bandwidth and/or xfer rate

You usually get really bad customers.

You also get scruitinized (please just say no to freewebhosting.net!) for not being 'completely' free if you ever do try to put up ads or try to make money.

You are consistantly called a scam. Oh, and what else?

You can make some good money, but when you do, geocities, and many other companies start to fire off worthless lawsuits that will require you to keep a lawyer on retainer and eventually make that good money maybe $.50/mo take home.

I recmend you just not do it. It is not worth it. Trust me. I know.

Best Regards,
Jason Turner
http://www.mysitehost.net


P.S. freewebspace.net has a LOT of jerks and over all buttheads. If you want to get quick publicity, go right ahead, but no matter how nice you are you'll have some enemies real quick. And they all love DOS attacking.

Join the good side of the force and do quality promoting. Take it slow. THen, when you have a rep. Go to freewebspace.net and blow away their competition!

That is, IF, you decide to do it after all (you crazy person you)

Well, our friend Chicken hovers around FreeWebSpace like a moth attracted to light (or is that heat? hehe :D) and I haven't seen him burnt out.........

Yet.

Well I must say I've noticed that Jason is right on when it comes to people complaining about what they are getting for free. There is a lot of people who don't seem satisfied no matter what you do, and that is disturbing. It isn't a business I would enter into personally.

You can run a free website program using a third-party service altogether like CommunityArchitect.com (formerly NorthSky until they were bought by About.com). This way you avoid all the nightmare of owning and operating the site.

Using their free co-branded scenario you get half of all the ad banners to do with as you please (I think - I'm still reading through my contract). They have a premier fully branded system where you get 100% of the ad space, but there is some fee involved.

What you can do is hope to build a user base and then try to sell them full webhosting when and if they want to upgrade. The problem will be that they will want the same "tools" provided by the free system.

Can't say I've figured just what to do with a free website system now that I've been accepted. Just that I know it would be a good addition to the series of regional guides I manage targeting our county.

Sean

Let my clarify this one more time. It's not going to be a free web host per se. I'm only accepting certain entertainment sites that must be approved by me before they will even get a user name on the server. This does 2 things. Sets me up for a good CPM deal in the future and keeps the scum out. I'm certain no one will be running illegal sites on me. About offer paid hosting. I'm considering that after everything gets up and running smoothly.

[Edited by syanet on 12-22-2000 at 03:50 PM]

If a user has a good entertainment site, they will not use you as their host.... Why's that? Its simply if their site attracts many unique visitors, they would be on a paid host.

I wouldn't say that's always true. Look at some of the sites on the Gamespy network, or GA Sports, or even FGN.

Just running through some last minute details before I open, and looking for any additonal advice. Anyone have some?

Seriously, if you want to do hosting and/or free content hosting. Join up with me, I would love to get in on it with you. But free hosting out right is really tough, and I highly reccomend against it.

In my 3-4 years experiance I have learned some great techniques to make a successfull buisness while keeping hosting free for a few select websites that have our ads on them and are part of the greater network of websites.

Maybe you can team up with Kyle too.
He has the post called "want parnership" a litle down on this list. Since free web hosting is a very big prject that requires VOLUMES, you should do this with others.

He and someone else e-mailed me about partnering up, but I've wanted to do this myself and have come to far to quit and partner up with someone now.