Hi there im a webdesigner but am going to go into the world of hosting and other internet services, such as shells, dialups hopefully more at a later date.
Just wondering if anyone here has any helpfull hints that you may want to share?
Or things i should stay clear of?
I have my site designed, i have a bank account, im looking into credit card processing and i have sorted out a hoster that im going to resell space with.
Anything else i should look into?

Just really wanting some advice off all you Webhosting Guru's ;)

Cheers

Craig

yes .. Lots and lots of Coffee .. you are going to need it ;)

Basically .. you need allot of dedication, this is a business that it's won by how dedicated and helpfull you seem to be to your clients :)

Yea thats the good thing. Im not in it alone which is a good thing in some respects and bad in others. There are 3 of us, im web boy and shell/linux nut and the other 2 do the hosting and we all do the support. Once we get the control pannels sorted we should be ok though.. cos that should knock down a whole load of work related to setting up things for clients.

Just hope it goes well!

;)

Cheers

Craig

When you get credit card merchant status, don't go for cheap ones, go straight to CardService and pay the money. It's worth it.

Get an 877 number instead of an 800, it's cheaper to run.

Get an email pager for everyone, so it looks like there's always someone at work. Answering tech calls over a pager at 11PM on a Sunday works wonders for customer satisfaction.

And don't forget the coffee :)

Merlin: What is this CardService one should go to?

What thing should one avoid to go for the cheap one? Is that the merchant account you're talking about?

http://www.cardservice.com

Whats a good way of advertising though? To get a ad in some mags its up to £4k an advert and for a buisness to start off thats alot of money.
Any other way to go about it?

Cheers

Craig

.Net magazine is £795 (ish) for a quarter page advert per month.

Id say that the £795 is worth it as it reachs over 90,000 readers ..... I'm one of them :).

Originally posted by Technics
Id say that the £795 is worth it as it reachs over 90,000 readers ..... I'm one of them :).

It depends what you are prepared to pay for customer aquisition.
90,000 reader
Say 9,000 actually read the ad.
Say 90 of them look up your web site.
Say 9 of them buy hosting.

Thats £88 aquisition cost on a plan that might bring in the same amount in profit in the first year.

I have done a lot of advertising for other purposes (I still buy space for clients) and I am always amazed at how low the takeup is.

The exception to that is regular ads which have a cumulative effect, but its certainly not a risk I would be prepared to take.

Gordon

Originally posted by MerlinWeb

Get an 877 number instead of an 800, it's cheaper to run.


Pardon,

Could someone explain what's the different between 877 and 800?
:D because here in my country 877 number is not exist yet.

Thx.
Soda

It is just another toll-free entension. 800 was the first, then 888, and now 877. It doesn't matter which you get (in the U.S. they don't cost anything if you choose the right carrier, and the rate depends on which carrier).

Lots of coffee..
lots of cookies...
lots of music...


Other then that, a sledge hammer :)

Not to be picky Technics but last time I asked for an ABC from .Net they told me it was 45,000 and for InternetWorks it was 30,000.

In our experience, advertising does not work very well in UK mags, unless you are huge and have 100k + a month to spend.

I was only going by the advert in the back of the mag :).

Says reach 90,000 Readers with your ad here call sales today.

Halve the hosts that do advertise in there have slow servers or never answer your emails. The best advert in that mag is the xcalibre one. I saw that and went straight to there site.

Glad you like the ad Technics, Ill pass the praise on to the designer (now we just need to get the websites up to date)
We spend around £6,500 per month in the UK Internet magazines, and it works for us, it doesnt make us much above what it costs us, but continuing sales from the new customers make it worthwhile, and it has helped a lot in spreading the name of the company.

Mind you, if the magazines werent to make so many cockups with the adds (Future publishing one's excepted, theyve been fine), they could do it for a lot cheaper, so far we've got about £17000 worth of free advertising from various magazines due to them screwing the adverts up one way or the other

*sigh*

Tony Lucas