I'm curious as to how viable offering "free" hosting (banner ad for my company being the catch) would be as an advertising method. My company is targeted towards a specific audience thus sites accepted for free hosting would have to fit the audience as well. I assume I could fit several hundred accounts per server, and with the low cost of dedicated servers, this seems like a cost effective method for advertising ($100 a month). My only worry is whether there is a big enough demand for free hosts with banners or not. I'm not worried about there being *too* many signups if the case may be since I would just stop accepting new signups.

i don't know about banners maybe a text link would be better?
This site is hosted for free by yourcompany .. with your little logo there or something.

Most people dont like banners but hey they might go for it if its free.

Just a thought,.

I think as long as you have your target market identified, as it sounds like you do, banners or text links are an effective means of gaining new customers.

Good luck.

If potential clients see that you're offering hosting for free, most likely, they won't be willing to pay for it.

Just something to consider, but it would be a cheaper form of advertising.

Originally posted by brn2h8
If potential clients see that you're offering hosting for free, most likely, they won't be willing to pay for it.

Just something to consider, but it would be a cheaper form of advertising.

or on the other hand, clients will notice that they need more space/bandwith and dont like the banners and will be more than happy to sign up for a paid account.

just remember not give away too much in the free accounts.

Good point! i didn't think of that. :D

Text advertise did not work for me very much. Graphics grabs attention but text.. in anyway :)

By the way you must consider cloding hotlinks. Most of users just come to these free hostings to host their pictures and have free bandwidth for their main websites.

Also I suggest you to specialize on a specific kind of websites.

Mac

Mushrew,

If you're already successfully hosting paid customers, I wouldn't bother. It would be more trouble than it's worth. Free hosting is a tough job, doing it right anyway.

But it can be a good starting point. Read my reply in this thread:
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=65593&goto=newpost

I'm always happy to have competition. ;)

Brian

Well my paid services don't include web hosting (what am i doing here...), so whether anybody would want to pay for something that's free now isn't really going to affect me. I'm expecting the visitors to the free sites to be looking into my services, not the actual makers of the sites.

Originally posted by mushrew
I'm expecting the visitors to the free sites to be looking into my services, not the actual makers of the sites.

99% of the visitors will have no interest in your services. The other 1% might click through. And if you're lucky, they might just buy.

Brian

Originally posted by Brian S


99% of the visitors will have no interest in your services. The other 1% might click through. And if you're lucky, they might just buy.

Brian


Hopefully I can get more than a 1% click through rate with more stringent content restrictions on the free accounts but even at 1% that's not bad. A few hundred accounts surely will net a million pages views a month, which at 1% would gain 10,000 click throughs and even if only 1% of those buy, I still have 100 new monthly customers. Worth the $100 I'd be spending IMO if it worked out. Well I'll give it a try, thanks for all the input.

Ummm, if you have a few million page views+ per month, you're gonna have a lot nagging "how do I get this to work" questions. Like I said, it may not be worth your time and money if you don't plan appropriately.

Get a cheap server, and cheap bandwidth. Of course, my pampered members are on a Compaq (soon to be Dell) server. :)

Brian

Don't overestimate the number of unique visitors. For instance, an example as below:

Site ABC has high traffic with 20,000 page views per day....
Turns out only 1,000 visitors per day....
Turns out many of those are repeats....so only 350 unique visitors per day.....

Turns out, very few new visitors during the course of a month....that rather than 350x30....reality is only about 1,500 unique visitors per month....and the following month even fewer new, uniques...

Now...if they are well targeted and very loyal may be ok...but just shows how misleading the initial numbers might be. For instance, in this case if you were paying $20/CPM, you might pay $600/month...or providing hosting cost you $150/month. A good deal, but true cost is $150/1500 uniques...still only about $0.10 per unique....so if you get 30 quality click throughs, works out to $5/per click.

Originally posted by mushrew
I'm curious as to how viable offering "free" hosting (banner ad for my company being the catch) would be as an advertising method. My company is targeted towards a specific audience thus sites accepted for free hosting would have to fit the audience as well. I assume I could fit several hundred accounts per server, and with the low cost of dedicated servers, this seems like a cost effective method for advertising ($100 a month). My only worry is whether there is a big enough demand for free hosts with banners or not. I'm not worried about there being *too* many signups if the case may be since I would just stop accepting new signups.

If you looking to do free hosting so your paid hosting will gain, it’ll never happen. Chances are the profit from the paid hosting (via the free hosting referrals) will go towards paying for the other free users, so it’s a loop. A loop you don’t get paid for and a loop the takes up YOUR time!

Unless you get tons of signups (i.e. lots 10+ per free site) it’ll just be a waste of time. People don’t care who hosts the site. They care about the content. So your ads will be worth nothing if they are looking for pictures of egor.

This type of advertising has no benefit.

More hits, the most that sites costs to run which means you better hope that the free sites bring you lots of sales (to cover the costs and to make you a profit). That’s the whole point of advertising, to bring sales.

Sounds dum, but if your hosting a site for free, and the site is part of a large communitee, the best ad to put on the page is a 88 x 31.

All large communitee's use 88 x 31 one and the site being a communitee people are most likely going to check out the affiliates.

I think you where I am coming from but I recommend this works because I am part of a large ewrestling communitee on the net, and people get around using 88 x 31.

I hope this is of help to you.

Originally posted by the elf
Unless you get tons of signups (i.e. lots 10+ per free site) it’ll just be a waste of time.
ROFLMAO! If I was getting 10 sign-ups per ONE free site, I'd be buying a datacenter. Heck, if I was getting 5 sign-ups per free site... :D

Brian

Originally posted by Brian S

ROFLMAO! If I was getting 10 sign-ups per ONE free site, I'd be buying a datacenter. Heck, if I was getting 5 sign-ups per free site... :D

Brian

Well, if you want to make money on your paid hosting from the free hosting, that's what it'll take (based on how much you charge). :D

Originally posted by the elf
Well, if you want to make money on your paid hosting from the free hosting, that's what it'll take (based on how much you charge). :D
Gee, thanks for letting me know! First thing in the morning, I'll call the bank and have them give the money back, 'cause I know it couldn't have come from my hosting business! ;)

Brian

Originally posted by Brian S

Gee, thanks for letting me know! First thing in the morning, I'll call the bank and have them give the money back, 'cause I know it couldn't have come from my hosting business! ;)

Brian

Hmmm... So.. you can pay for all the free users and turn a profit from all the signups you get from the free hosting?? You must have a high ratio then and/or use cheap bandwidth. You must also give away your time to manage the free hosting (which I don't). If you consider the cost of an admin ($30-100/hour), it might impact your profits a little. :rolleyes:

Originally posted by the elf


Hmmm... So.. you can pay for all the free users and turn a profit from all the signups you get from the free hosting?? You must have a high ratio then and/or use cheap bandwidth....

Three words: Cogent and Hostmania. (For me at least).

Good luck. The only users you gonna get are newbies who'll either quit easily or be huge headaches for support.

Originally posted by Skeptical
Good luck. The only users you gonna get are newbies who'll either quit easily or be huge headaches for support.
One thing to keep in mind: Newbies don't mind paying extra for stuff, are loyal, and use hardly any server resources.

But hey, I'm not here to convince anyone. Whatever floats your boat. I'm just telling you how it works for me.

Brian