This is my 4th tutorial about running a webhost.

These are some things you must always practise and mantain through your companys life.

• Support


Reseller:

If you have a reseller with a company then you might need outsoruces support and thats it , it will be the best money you have ever spent, support is everything!
You must always have people online ready to solve peoples problems ofcourse it will cost you but then again it will turn up as a valueable asset!
the sites that i recommend are

http://touchsupport.com

So far no bad review and good service as well.


Dedicated and VPS:

Ok dedicated servers and vps are VERY hard to manage problems you have never ever even heard of will come out of the wazoo and have you in a choke hold
Its really hard securing a dedi server, there are problems that are completely bizarre such as memory and bandwidth leaks.

NEVER go for cheap management its like having a crook do your financial management….your management company is the only thing you can rely on, my personal experience, when I started I used PSM and got hurt bad lost almost 300$...cheap is never the way plus what would your customers think if they knew that you cant even pay for the mantainance of your server? That is certainly not a good picture.

The only company id suggest is:

http://serversupportguys.com




• Refund


ALWAYS keep a refund policy, what your customers pay you is not your allowance that you can spend on whatever comes first online, ALWAYS ALWAYS stay under the impression that the customer wants its money back and be ready with his/her refund, this is not only a full proof plan for your business but also a part of good ethics, and I believe in a COMPLETE REFUND guarantee rather then just 30/60/90 days, if they are unsatisfied with your service for any month offer a full refund for that particular month and resolve whatever it is that they are having problems with.

Remember you are running a company not a scam, the money you get is given to you for a service!


• Advertising/Marketting

For any starting host the best way to advertise is Google Adwords:

http://google.com/adwords/

You must have at least a 100$ budget to get the word around on your host.
Places like our very own WHT is also a great place to get advertising as well

Click the link for more info on advertising here:
http://inetinteractive.com/advertising/index.html?site=webhostingtalk


• Policies


Ahh yes the final part, policies are very important for a web host as they are the rules that you have to follow and the guidelines for day to day conduct, if you can make one up its great if not get it here:

http://hostlegal.com



These really important , they tell any/all potential customers about what you offer and what are the rules and regulations that they have to follow and what kind of protection do they get by hosting with you.


Hope you learned something new today :)
That’s it for Part-4

Next Part:
COMING SOON
Par-5 When to go bigger (RESELLER – VPS – DEDICATED – COLO )

Good job... very informative.

Thanks Ahmed, i got quite a few pms for another tutorial so here i am :)

Thank you for your nice tutorial!
I hope part5 will post soon, very interesting! :)

No problem i just post my experiences and what ive learned from them :)
trial and error i guess

You have done a fantastic job creating all of these tutorials. Thank you so much for your time and effort!

Mike

Keep it up, these tutorials look good to me.

I just wanted to also say thank you for creating these tutorials. They've given me things to think about.

Cocodude

Do you have any suggestions for non-indian support companies?

I suggest for any companies to use paying software, Because customers will want to see what your spending the money they give you on. It shows some reassurance to them.

Nice tutorial although i've been in this sector for 3 years now i can imagine that a starting company will find these tutorials helpfull.

Very helpful, thanks

You should write a book on this. =)

One more thing I would like to add to this list. Always, Always have a monitoring system. There is nothing more embarrasing then getting a client saying.your server is down and your like not it's not. Tell your client's if it is! I recommend Alertra.

One more thing I would like to add to this list. Always, Always have a monitoring system. There is nothing more embarrasing then getting a client saying.your server is down and your like not it's not. Tell your client's if it is! I recommend Alertra.

Quite true. Hyperspin is also very good too (and possibly a little cheaper).

thanks..this tutorial really helped :)

About legal issues also dont forget to ask your lawyer all your issues before starting any venture online. offering affordable web hosting services is always a delicate matter, you must be totally informed before you move ahead!

Regards


<<Signatures to be setup in your profile>>

Really good information, a fellow entrepreneur like myself.

Nice Very Useful

You must have at least a 100$ budget to get the word around on your host.
Places like our very own WHT is also a great place to get advertising as well

I disagree with both of these. Adwords is not great for a startup host, too much competition and your clicks are likely to get used up quickly as you will need to price them high with little follow through likely.

Advertising on WHT as a startup is even worse, WHT visitors are less likely to go with a small startup, they are much more versed in the industry generally and will pick a host with history.

Local advertising is the way to go, dont try to take on the global market from the get go. Use a market thats likely to support a local business and that market is outside your front door, not on the other side of the world. Once you get going you cant take on the world ;)


Firstly, Adsence

An exellent tutorial
Thanks to do this i'm new in this world

Thanks, that's something I was looking for.

I agree with wisenerl, however overall another great tutorial

This is a great start. Nice tutorial. Thank you for sharing.

touchsupport sucks in my opinion. nothing is better than doing it yourself. and if you need support, hire someone to do it. why pay $4.25 per support ticket? that's like a month's profit from one customer! and what happens when you exceed 75 tickets in a month? no more? that's just not good enough.

Thanks, very informative. The refund part is something you have to respect. Many companies don't even respect this policy. If your customer wants a refund, give it back, but ensure what bothered him will be fixed. Take it as a review, not a curse!

Great tutorial, have been reading through the other 3 - also extremely good. Good point about the refunds as some people take out hosting for 30 days and then move onto the next host forever so a must to keep funds avalible!

I definitely agree with you regarding offering of a good technical support. If you fail on doing that, the whole esteem of your company will go down, and no matter how appealing you look, it's worthless.

This is really helpful, didn't know you could outsource support. Thanks!

Great thread; agreed, an offsite monitoring service is a great tool that will allow you to react and even notify your clients; sometimes before they are aware of issues.

Nicely done.

Great article! When can we expect the next one? Looking forward to it. :D

I can't wait for part 5, very informative! Keep 'em comin'!

Thanks CX.ERIC - you have positive karma for sharing your experience/s. I look forward to POST 5 !