Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : Running a Web Hosting Business Tutorials : Setting up your business checklist

[anythinghosts]

Well surprise to say i am unable to provide a quick fix, an invaluable method for becoming a millionaire or how to gain so many visitors your server explodes.

However i can provide you with a simple checklist of things need doing to start your hosting business, as dumb as it may sound i found writing everything out on paper helps a great amount:

- Finding a host

Well the first thing is to find a VPS or Dedicated server host that is within your budget. You need to consider all the options. Do i use linux? Cent OS, Redhat? perhaps Windows? Also what control panel to use, cPanel? Plesk? DirectAdmin? Webmin? Helm? You cant try to name your business until you know exactly what your going to sell and to whom. This does not mean buy hosting in this instant....just find it :-)

- Naming your company

This is the fun bit, and i mean the ONLY fun bit. Naming your company. You need a name which reflects what your company does, who its providing it to and why its providing it in the first place. Then a suitable domain name to follow.

- Design

Now that you have your name sorted a site of some kind is best to help you. If you are as hopeless at drawing as me thn you will need a template for your site and a logo. On a budget this can be done by visiting some template sites and looking through their hosting section. For the larger budgets then outsourcing or freelancing your sites creation is the best option.

- Other software

You will need other software to set-up your company. An essential is billing software, i myself use modernbill and its indispensible. You also have to think about live support and phone numbers. There is the expensive way to provide this but a clever trick (which i dont use but it works great) is to buy a SkypeIN account with british and american numbers on it, so it looks like you have world wide support, in the comfort of your own home :-P

- Nameservers

Nameservers, thoose very annoying things which confused me no end when i started. Easily solution? Get your seller to do them for you! All major resellers like Enom, Namecheap, 1and1 etc etc will all allow you to create your own nameservers. All you require is your server IP addresses and it will get you ns1 and ns2 for your domain.

- Time-out

So a last minute check before everything is launched. We have a working server with a control panel installed all set-up and ready to create accounts. We have made an account for our hosting site, installed and filled the template we have bought complete with billing software and live support. So now the final and constant hurdle!

- Shouting the message

Its all well and good have the new pentium 9 130.5Ghz processor in your machine, but until somebody knows you have this its pretty much useless. So we need to advertise. I have some good methods in which to do this. Firstly, contact already exsisting sites and offer to host their site for free in return for some ads on their site. Also there is the normal advertisement method. You can write articles about various things and leaving your domain name in the article. An extreme method is to create your own other site and plaster it with your ads, but then you'd need to advertise that site also.

And thats about it. From here on in its your own methods. You have now completed my checklist. :-)

[hosterschill]

I liked it all accept creating your own site and plastering ads on it, first i dont like sites that are plastered with ads, there just disqusting and second another site just makes advertising harder because then you have to maintain to sites.
But im not dissing your tut. at all i did like it. just forwarding my opinion.

[anythinghosts]

Thats probably more my writing. I hate ads but they good way of getting peeps to your site. I meant putting YOUR ads on OTHERS sites

I hope that cleared it up

[Dynamic-Comps]

Problem is there's 5000000000 webhsots out there.

[LukeKrogh]

Problem is there's 5000000000 webhsots out there.

...So we FINALLY have an exact count. Just kidding

Good to-the-point article though.

[Gigahostingbiz]

you forgot:

find at least one good friend / partner who knows about the hosting-stuff who is helping you, at least, when you're ill, dead, or o´n vacations ;-)

Best

[JMarrow]

Anythinghosts, I'm about to start my own online business and I found your checklist very useful. My question to you is: which of the points that you stated in this checklist should any entrepreneur devote more time and energy to ? Thanks!

[TimothyH]

Thanks for that. It helped me out a bit.

[AinaNet]

Very helpful for us noobs. I think I like the "Time-out" on the best. Lots of little things that can mess up your whole plan, thats for sure!

[RockServices]

Originally Posted by JMarrow

Anythinghosts, I'm about to start my own online business and I found your checklist very useful. My question to you is: which of the points that you stated in this checklist should any entrepreneur devote more time and energy to ? Thanks!

The desgin is important, a good site, makes a good impression.

Good Day

[Nightcoder]

Originally Posted by RockServices

The desgin is important, a good site, makes a good impression.

Good Day

This is true in some ways but people can be fooled by this.
What I have noticed is that if people spend to much time on the look of their site they some times lack parts of the service they should be concentrating on, like customer service and so on. I feel in some ways that as long as your site is easy to use and the main thing is that you can provide the service you are advertising it don't really matter about the way it looks. Its really simple but great customer service gets good impressions.

[zaniness]

Yes, the first impression counts, so the design must be very impressive and suitable, but what use if the content ain't at the same level with the site's view?
Cheers

[swiftmed]

a great article. thanks so much for sharing it.

[Rick67]

Originally Posted by JMarrow

Anythinghosts, I'm about to start my own online business and I found your checklist very useful. My question to you is: which of the points that you stated in this checklist should any entrepreneur devote more time and energy to ? Thanks!

In my humble opinion, a good website design is important etc. but what is REALLY going to make or break your business is MARKETING. Without marketing, very few will know you exist.

[eLief]

Some good points, except I think finding a host to go through should be one of the last things to do. You need to spend time on developing and branding the company and making sure everything is set up properly offline before you spend the money to put anything online.