Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Running a Web Hosting Business : Starting a Webhosting Company Need Advice

[CyberChaos]

I'm starting a new web hosting company with free and paid hosting and I need advice and tips to make my company successful.

[bqinternet]

The first step is to spend time researching the industry. WHT is a great source for information. The next step is to come up with a business plan and then decide if you want to go forward.

[porcupine]

Third step is, don't bother. If you come to WHT, With the above opening post on the subject, theres a very good chance you'll invest time, money, and get little more then "an experience" out of it. Chances are, school/classes may be more beneficial (both in time, and money).

[creepin]

Originally Posted by CyberChaos

I'm starting a new web hosting company with free and paid hosting and I need advice and tips to make my company successful.

IMO, the industry is over-saturated. These days, it's really hard to simply start up and actually compete without spending tons of money. If you got the money, go for it. If you don't, don't waste your time.

[skullbox]

Originally Posted by creepin

IMO, the industry is over-saturated. These days, it's really hard to simply start up and actually compete without spending tons of money. If you got the money, go for it. If you don't, don't waste your time.

I agree. Last time I said this I got flamed from other people saying web hosting is a still a great business to get into. My advice: focus on something special. Try to find something with less competition. My specialty is application hosting on dedicated servers. I found an application that is that is the industry standard in a particular vertical market. I got to know the product and became an expert with it. There are far less companies doing what I do. This way I get more business and make higher margins. Creepin makes a good point, the market for standard "web hosting" is more than crowded.

If you are really set on doing web hosting, you can try to focus your efforts on your local area. You may be able to pick up some customers with some local advertising or word of mouth. Just my 2 cents...

[dhcart]

You can start by selling shared hosting. You will need a reseller hosting at least to do this. You can find a lot of reliable reseller hosting providers by reading reviews on WHT.

[lostmind]

Advice - find a niche, become an expert in that niche. Build your product offering to meet (and exceed) the needs of that niche. Then market your product aggressively to that niche.

Sounds simple... it isn't.

[The_Dominator]

lots to learn - good luck - this is not only the hosting forum - there are others - go there as well - www.hostingdiscussion.com is good as well - people there are helpfull

but lots of reading, find your niche and best of luck

[dbbrock1]

The hosting market is only over saturated if you half ass your efforts. Sure, the days of simply putting up a hosting site and building a couple links to get customers are over. However, there is still plenty of stuff you can do to get customers.

It's all the fundamental stuff that has been around since the dawn of internet that still works - forum marketing, sponsoring websites, even hitting up local venues still work.

One thing that is totally underused for some reason is the idea of a hosting blog. I have a hosting blog and it gets fairly decent traffic - roughly 200 visits a day with no more than 65 posts on it. I haven't touched my blog in like 4 months and it still brings in pretty solid traffic. Imagine if you had a 100 or even 200 page blog covering web hosting, and other things like domain registration news, google news, etc. All of that stuff will give you massive targeted search traffic you can funnel to your order pages with a little bit of practice.

[skullbox]

Originally Posted by dbbrock1

The hosting market is only over saturated if you half ass your efforts. Sure, the days of simply putting up a hosting site and building a couple links to get customers are over. However, there is still plenty of stuff you can do to get customers.

It's all the fundamental stuff that has been around since the dawn of internet that still works - forum marketing, sponsoring websites, even hitting up local venues still work.

One thing that is totally underused for some reason is the idea of a hosting blog. I have a hosting blog and it gets fairly decent traffic - roughly 200 visits a day with no more than 65 posts on it. I haven't touched my blog in like 4 months and it still brings in pretty solid traffic. Imagine if you had a 100 or even 200 page blog covering web hosting, and other things like domain registration news, google news, etc. All of that stuff will give you massive targeted search traffic you can funnel to your order pages with a little bit of practice.

You have a good point. Blog's have become huge and are still growing because everyone is into SEO these days. There is still a fair amount of competition in blog hosting, but not as much as web hosting in general.

[TailoredVPS]

Originally Posted by creepin

IMO, the industry is over-saturated. These days, it's really hard to simply start up and actually compete without spending tons of money. If you got the money, go for it. If you don't, don't waste your time.

I agree with this statement 100%.

If you still want to start a host, purchase a reseller plan and start off by selling shared hosting. Start by talking to local business because they pay a lot more than you would get by advertising online.

[AH-Oliver]

As everyone has said, start with selling shared and then work up. No good starting with a VPS/dedicated server and expecting to break even in the first month. Start small, then grow larger - that's how all the best hosts started out including ourselves.

[inspiron]

Yes, I would agree with the others that starting with the reseller hosting would surely help you to get your feet stuck deeply in this business with minimum risk. When your business get expand you should try for VPS or Dedicated.

[GHOnline]

Find a good niche and never tell lies to your customers.Never sell unlimited stuff,always have control of your own server..

[mooseweb]

Originally Posted by GHOnline

Find a good niche and never tell lies to your customers.Never sell unlimited stuff,always have control of your own server..

What's bad about selling unlimited?

Nothing is wrong with overselling, as long as you don't lie to your customers.

Tell them what overselling is, and your fine.