I am getting sales don't get me wrong but 3 a month is not what i want. My price point is on target my service if i had customers asking questions would be great. What else do i need to do? do i just need to be patient?

Pick up the phone and start calling and asking for business. quickest/shortest way to do it.

advertising...go for local businesses first.

What are you selling? What's the price? How's the overall service? Do you have a good SEO and an eye catching design?

add .net to my name and take a look. I think it is fairly good.

add .net to my name and take a look. I think it is fairly good.
Where's the live chat?

When I first went in there... I was like... This is scary, I wont take risks with this company.
You're going to need some "contact us" eye catcher (MSN, AIM, ICQ or Live Chat).
I think it's a must!

Also, The name might look smart at first but "cheap" isn't only money wise, it also means it's poor quality.
You don't need to have "cheap" in your name, if your prices are low - People will see it by themselves...
A name like "QUALITY HOSTS" would of been much better!

Also when I clicked Contact us it redirected me to emailing info@digitalknightslive.com... What's that about? Shows that the company is not well established and not professional.

Last, the services them self;
You tell me, Who should I buy from - You or (just for example) InnoHosting.Com or even ezpzhosting.co.uk?

I'm sorry if that was harse, I only want to help!

I appreciate that. We have not added live chat as of yet we are working on that. Also as for the contact us not i just have not gotten to the creation of that page. I am contiuosly working on it.

On the name part of it, well i see your point, the whole idea was that are catch phrase was "cheap is our middle name!"

Also it is not that i am not getting customers cause I am. I would just like to get a bigger Volume of customers. I believe my price points are right on. I just want to know what is missing.

There's a typo on your homepage - "guarunteed" isn't a word.

There's no information on your product pages, just a table with your plans. Add some intro text.

Use the WHMCS contact form rather than emailing a random domain. It doesn't look professional at all.

Lastly, nobody knows who you are so you need to offer something unique to make people want to host with you. It isn't just your plans or price.

It really depends on your hosting accounts as well as the marketing solutions being used. For example, for the folks with money, the paid links and advertisements could be great, the PPC projects too would be excellent. If you are not willing to spend anything, try boosting the traffic of your website by improving its ranks and this involves the SEO practices.

I appreciate that. We have not added live chat as of yet we are working on that. Also as for the contact us not i just have not gotten to the creation of that page. I am contiuosly working on it.

On the name part of it, well i see your point, the whole idea was that are catch phrase was "cheap is our middle name!"

Also it is not that i am not getting customers cause I am. I would just like to get a bigger Volume of customers. I believe my price points are right on. I just want to know what is missing.
I understand, but me as a potential customer - It's important to me to know that the company I'm buying from is professional, that's all.
If I were you, with every step I make; I'd ask my self - Is this something a professional company would do? ;)

My page rank has nothing to do with that i am already a pr4 without cheating.

My page rank has nothing to do with that i am already a pr4 without cheating.

good to know that,advertise in forum and main is get local market as much as possible

I know I personally wouldn't do business with a domain that has privacy protection. What are you trying to hide?

Your checkout process doesn't use SSL, im surprised anyone has went through that.

Your contact address isn't related to the domain of the hosting firm.

all bad.

Hello,

On the topic of looking for customers... this is one which every hosting company faces. I am not sure how long you have been in business and for most hosting companies who just start out or are only a few months in, business can be very slow.

A suggestion would be first to go around to local business and start off by:

Hello, my name is blah blah and I want to talk to you about a way to double the amount of sales you get.

First off, do you have a website?

If they answer with a no, then find out why. Maybe they say they don't have the time or don't know how...

Then explain what you offer, give them a small pamphlet of info about your company, services, plans, what you can provide to them, and that it can cause an increase in sales and rating.

If they answer with a yes, then maybe they aren't very happy with their current website or what it's bringing in if any. If this is the case it would be a good idea to suggest your services as a upgrade. Tell them you can offer a more professionally designed web site and things like increasing traffic to their site.

Many companies today who go into the business are worried about a saturated market. If you believe their is little space for you in online advertising with the competition then offline advertising is a great strategy. After all, how many hosting companies live in your same city and go to the same businesses offering great hosting and design services?

I hope you have found the information above helpful.
Good luck in your web hosting journey. :)

Hello,

On the topic of looking for customers... this is one which every hosting company faces. I am not sure how long you have been in business and for most hosting companies who just start out or are only a few months in, business can be very slow.

A suggestion would be first to go around to local business and start off by:



If they answer with a no, then find out why. Maybe they say they don't have the time or don't know how...

Then explain what you offer, give them a small pamphlet of info about your company, services, plans, what you can provide to them, and that it can cause an increase in sales and rating.

If they answer with a yes, then maybe they aren't very happy with their current website or what it's bringing in if any. If this is the case it would be a good idea to suggest your services as a upgrade. Tell them you can offer a more professionally designed web site and things like increasing traffic to their site.

Many companies today who go into the business are worried about a saturated market. If you believe their is little space for you in online advertising with the competition then offline advertising is a great strategy. After all, how many hosting companies live in your same city and go to the same businesses offering great hosting and design services?

I hope you have found the information above helpful.
Good luck in your web hosting journey. :)

This is a great writeup. I'd probably call or mail them ahead to let them know you wish to come to discuss a great business opportunity that can drastically increase their sales and ask them when a convenient time is for them to have you meet them (just so you don't show up at a time that is not very convenient for them).

This is a great writeup. I'd probably call or mail them ahead to let them know you wish to come to discuss a great business opportunity that can drastically increase their sales and ask them when a convenient time is for them to have you meet them (just so you don't show up at a time that is not very convenient for them).


As stated above you should probably contact them ahead of time.

I would just like to note that I have had a positive impact with doing this type of advertising. Their is a pretty large company in my town which I went down to talk to the office manager one day about getting a website because I read in the paper that they where looking for a managed website including web design, getting it on search engines, and also setting up their office email. I ended up getting over $800.00 from this company for about 2 months of hosting and at that point they decided that they needed to start hosting their site on a server of their own.

That is quite and amount over 2 months from one client. This method can be very effective if you just use it in the right way. ;)

Good luck, :)

just to clear something up since i have seen it posted 2 times now leading back to this thread. There is a site http://hostmyfuture.com/ that has a layout that they bought from templatemonster as i did. We are in no way related.

I ended up getting over $800.00 from this company for about 2 months of hosting and at that point they decided that they needed to start hosting their site on a server of their own.

Yikes, that's a lot for shared hosting for one client. I'm sure you were bummed when they cancelled :rolleyes:

Yikes, that's a lot for shared hosting for one client. I'm sure you were bummed when they cancelled :rolleyes:


Actually it wasn't only shared hosting. I mean that was what their account said but in order to get them to sign up in the first place I developed their site and basically set up their office computers with email which as before the way that they had their email was lacking major organization. I did several things for them since they had very experience with this stuff.

I have made more money over the past few months from them for getting their computers fixed, or setting up something on their network.

Have a good day. :)

Start from Local places people you know and you should get aleast 3% sales from people you know already but 3% is not bad because you get word of mouth from your close friends and then you can start to post flyers to local business make sure you have special offer on the flyers to pull them in. To sale you would need to go to the local Network Business Meeting to meet new clients where you can chat and sale your Business Face to Face with company Owners. Not sure if you have done that already !
Hope this helps :)

As above, local marketing is probably the best way to get your foot in the door if you're looking to up your sales. Get acquainted with those in your city and surrounding cities. Word of Mouth advertising generally follows as long as your services are up to par. I've found it's much easier to get those that can see you in person, as a real person they can interact with, to talk about you more than it is to get those online, who can't physically see you, to do so.

As above, local marketing is probably the best way to get your foot in the door if you're looking to up your sales. Get acquainted with those in your city and surrounding cities. Word of Mouth advertising generally follows as long as your services are up to par. I've found it's much easier to get those that can see you in person, as a real person they can interact with, to talk about you more than it is to get those online, who can't physically see you, to do so.

Agree :) When they see you Face to Face they talk to others about you and what kind things you can help them with just like a big Chain

Even simple things as going to the dentist can turn into another sale. Perhaps the dentist ask what you do for a living and you tell him. He reply's something like "I've been trying to get a site up for the dental office although lack of skill and time has held me back." Then you can let him know that you can do web design and hosting of the website and if you have done good you may just have another customer. Remember that one customer will somehow turn into your whole client base.

Customer satisfaction! That's the buzz! Most of the markets open up by the principle of 'word of mouth' and in most cases this works. Just be honest and transparent with your customers. It works

You should optimize your website to get targeted traffic.

At first glance your site looks on the up-and-up- clean and professional. However, needs some personalality like a phone # and live chat. Good luck!

As ITEHosting said you can find the clients in off-line also. We have got about 20% of our clients from off-line.

Quality is important for any kind of business.
Someone said that one satisfied client can bring three new clients. I don't know whether is it true or not. But we get our new (from on-line) clients by recommendation (~ 20% again)

Good luck :)

One satisfied customer does get in 20% of business. That statement is correct. Keep a balance between the quality and the deliverables.

this is one great thread thank you everyone.

Quality of support is the buzz word here.

doing a successful business online may be the hardest thing in the world.
how patient we need to become ? how stong in mind we need to grow? how long is the way to achieve the goals?

You need to have a strategy. That will clear off the emotional doubts

I would say world of mouth and target mainly on the local marketing it would be definetely effective.

Word of mouth from the existing customers will work if you have excellent support and reliable servers

For me, the going after local business seems a bit cumbersome. My company has had a lot of success using the online advertising method via Google Adwords.

It is a bit of a stop and go struggle sometimes though as we are also a small company with limited budgets.

So far our ROI has been about 4 customers for every $100 we spend. Considering our plans range from $5 - $20 a month, with an average of $10 a month, we make our money back in 2.5 months. A 2.5 month ROI is extremely good, and it seems to be working for us.

A friend who also owns a hosting company told me one time "in the hosting business there is so much competition, there is NO competition". I always thought that was a smart quote.

But obviously having your poker in as many fires as possible will always yield the best results. Online, Offline and Sky Written Messages are all great ideas! :)

Do you have an advertising/marketing strategy?
Are you receiving many visitors to your website?

If you are receiving only 10 customers a month to your website and are creating 3 sales, that is good. But if you are receiving 10,000 visitors and turning that into 3 sales, something isn't right.

You need to find out if it is bringing people to your website that is the problem, or the problem is with your service (pricing, packages, look of website, customer service). :)

Yes definitely a good point Bannaz.

A good way to test what no-page strategies are working, and which are not, is to use Google's new Website Optimizer tool. It allows you to create different versions of the same page, and Google will show different versions of the same page to different batches of people. What this does is allow you to gauge what text content is working, what graphics are working etc etc.

Getting 10 customers to your site is a good sign! Could you share the strategy? I could use that at my end as well

Yes definitely a good point Bannaz.

A good way to test what no-page strategies are working, and which are not, is to use Google's new Website Optimizer tool. It allows you to create different versions of the same page, and Google will show different versions of the same page to different batches of people. What this does is allow you to gauge what text content is working, what graphics are working etc etc.

The Google Website Optimizer tool .. is this a freeware?

The google webmaster tool is available.

Well another point to note is that your current status in WHT will not reflect well on your company and as such will not help you in getting sales at all. :rolleyes:

Marketing. Customers do not appear out of thin air.
If you are a web business, there are two things you must concentrate on

1) Driving traffic to your website
2) Converting that traffic into paying customers.

#1 - I suggest choosing a niche and finding a community you can target easily that belongs to that niche.

Rightly said.. the niche has to be cut out and targetted. The word of mouth also plays a great role with successful customers getting in more. You may also have reward points or discounts on renewal for referrers

Diverting traffic can be done by the optimization process. However converting traffic into customers is a sales task .. a very important one too !