Posted by The web hosting industry has been growing since the advent of digitization and the ever-increasing number of websites. Today, with search engines and social media evolving into the primary drivers of online traffic (and hence, business), every company – big or small – is working towards creating and enhancing its online presence. This has led to an increased demand for customized hosting services. Hosting Resellers are uniquely placed to benefit from this demand as they can offer packages tailor-made to a small market segment as opposed to a hosting company that caters to a much larger market. If you have been contemplating starting a website hosting business, then here is a simple beginner’s guide to making money with Reseller Hosting.
Reseller Hosting
The first question you should ask is – What is Reseller Hosting?
As a Hosting Reseller, you purchase a Reseller Hosting plan that includes resources like CPU, RAM, disk space, etc. from a hosting company. Next, you create specialized hosting packages for your target clients and sell them under your brand. For your clients, you are the web host and responsible for the smooth functioning of the website. A simple analogy would be renting out an entire building and then leasing individual apartments to tenants and earning profits.
Before you begin, you need to understand why Reseller Hosting is beneficial.
Benefits of Reseller Hosting
- It is a cost-effective way of entering the web hosting industry since you don’t have to spend on the infrastructure or manpower required.
- Most web hosts offer White Label support that allows you to sell the packages under your brand name. Your clients will never know who the hosting company is.
- It is a scalable business model. This means that you can start with lesser resources and increase them as your business grows.
- The hosting company manages the server and infrastructure. This saves you time and effort that you would otherwise spend on managing the same.
- It is a good business model to create a long-term source of income since site owners don’t like changing their hosting services unless necessary.
What do you get in a Reseller Hosting plan?
- Disk Space
- Domain hosting
- Bandwidth
- Control Panel
- White Label Support
- Security and Management tools
- Technical support
Things to know before you start
Here are some important points to keep in mind before you start selling web hosting packages to your clients:
- Create hosting packages according to your target clients. Research the target market segment and identify unmet hosting requirements or pain areas and offer solutions via your packages.
- Take a client on-board only if you can offer a better deal. Transparency is the key to a successful Reseller Hosting business. Do not overcommit or hide facts as an unhappy client can cause more losses.
- Always start small and test the waters. Since most Reseller Hosting plans are scalable, you can add resources and create more packages as you go.
- Many Resellers oversell their resources, hoping that clients will not utilize the allotted space or bandwidth. Avoid this mistake. In today’s times, it is impossible to predict when a site might need all of its allotted resources.
- Ensure that at least 25-30% of your disk space is unutilized at all times. This can help you manage the additional space requirements of your clients.
- Offer personalized support that hosting companies cannot. Remember, this is an important tool which if used right, can help you fight your competition with ease.
- Security should be a crucial aspect of your packages.
- Marketing your business is important.
Summing Up
This article can help you get started with your web hosting business. You must remember that as long as you can offer hosting plans that help site owners run and manage their websites efficiently, making money will be easy. In fact, happy clients would mean more referrals and more business. Focus on your clients and offer the best you can. Good Luck!