Have you ever dreamt of having your own business? Of course, you might have. But many of you haven’t yet completed your dream, right? The reasons might be many, right from lack of finance to maybe lack of time. Today, internet is flooded with many firms that help you to start online business or earn money online. Most of you might have even tried to go with them but landed being fooled. So, to avoid this, you need to be alert and should be able to identify the actual money making resources.
What if I tell you about a trustable and worthy money making resource? Yes, I do have one! Eager to know what is it?
Become a web hosting reseller. Surprised! Definitely, you can sell web hosting services.
Don’t scratch your head. It’s very easy. Want to know how?
Let’s check the process of starting a web hosting business.
First of all, you need to know about reseller hosting.
What is Reseller Hosting?
Reseller hosting is a hosting service that allows you to host your website as well as your client’s website on the server.
That means you can utilize some resources of the server for your website and sell the remaining ones to your clients.
A web host offers you reseller hosting plans from which you can select as per your preference and start your web hosting business. That’s so simple!
Why is Reseller Hosting Important and Popular?
Though being most important, it is an underrated question.
A web hosting business isn’t so easy to start and therefore, it is recommended to do a deep research and learn everything about reseller hosting before getting started.
Let’s take a look at importance and popularity of reseller hosting.
Reseller is important and popular among the businesses that want to offer complete web hosting solution to their clients.
It won’t be sensible for the web host as well as the client to get different things from different places. Therefore, it is advised to sell reseller hosting. Also, it is important for those who are into the web design and development business.
Related: The Ultimate Guide for Web Developers: To Make Profitable Web Hosting Business
The next vital thing you will need to get done, is purchasing a web hosting plan for your own website. Prior to selling the web hosting services to your clients, you will have to find out a plan for your own website.
Check the below points to select a web host for your website:
1. Hosting Requirements: Know and figure out what are your hosting needs.
2. Uptime: Check for the server uptime report of the company from where you are planning to buy web hosting.
3. Renewal Process: Check their renewal prices and process to renew.
4. Refund: Ensure if they have a refund or money back policy.
5. Limitations: Recognize the limitations of your hosting account for avoiding account suspension.
6. Backup: What will be the frequency of the website backup?
7. Hosting Company: Select the same hosting company as the one you would like to resell for.
Selecting the Best Reseller Hosting Company
To select a reseller hosting company is similar to selecting a web hosting company for your website. The basic difference is to select the web hosting plans that will benefit you for long term.
It is also important to understand, what every company offers in their reseller hosting plans prior to finalizing one.
Check the below points to select the best web hosting company:
8. Support: Prior to signing up for any hosting company, ensure that the hosting company offers you 24/7/365 days support.
9. Uptime: Check if they really offer the uptime that they guarantee. Also, it is important to know what they do, if their service goes down and what you need to do at such times.
10. Money Back Policy: See if they offer money back guarantee. Make sure that you will get your money back, if you aren’t satisfied with their service. Check for the time when you can ask for refund, generally it is 30 days.
11. Scalability: One can’t predict the number of clients they will have in the next 2 years. Thus, it’s better to go with a web host who provides you with scalability option.
12. Value for money: One shouldn’t ignore what you get out of the complete deal. Remember to check what your web host offers while finalizing one and also, what features it offers for free.
13. Minimum Contract period: See if there is a minimum contract period for your reseller hosting account. Learn about their renewal process. Ask such questions for avoiding an unwanted surprise later on.
14. Can you get a profit?: Of course, you will get a chance to earn profit similar to others that are earning well in the reseller hosting business. But also, don’t neglect the fact that they might have joined the reseller hosting game when there was less competition.
Today, you will find very high competition in the reseller hosting business. Thus, to establish your brand in the reseller hosting business, it is important to market your website and stay ahead in the competition.
15. Risks a Reseller has to Take: When you start a reseller hosting business there will be many responsibilities, such as –
- Listening to and solving your customer’s problems personally.
- Whichever reseller hosting you choose, your business success will completely depend on its stability and success.
- Be organized in terms of administration, accounts and backups.
16. Server location: Planning to host your website near to the clients? It’s good but it will limit your target audience. Instead, it is best to host your website from multiple locations based globally. It will help you to serve your clients from multiple locations effectively.
Thus, follow these tips and come to the final decision of selecting a reseller hosting company.
Setting Up a Reseller Hosting Business
After you select your web hosting company you will complete 50% of your work. For instance, if you select MilesWeb, the next step would be deciding on reselling Linux hosting or Windows hosting.
When your selection between the operating systems is final, you will need to select a plan as per your requirement. So, go through the below pointers:
Type of hosting you want to sell:
I already said that there are two types of hosting you can sell. One is Linux hosting and the other is Windows hosting.
17. Linux Hosting: Linux reseller hosting comes with cPanel/WHM (Web Host Manager). Other features comprise of unlimited host domains, SSD disk space, unlimited bandwidth, Softaculous, free unlimited SSL certificate, free domain reseller account, unlimited MySQL databases and unlimited email accounts.
18. Windows Hosting: Windows reseller hosting plans come with Plesk control panel. Other features comprise of unlimited host domains, SSD disk space, unlimited bandwidth, unlimited MySQL and MSSQL databases, unlimited email addresses and free domain reseller account.
Note: The features may vary provider to provider but MilesWeb offers all of them mentioned above.
Features that you should check in reseller hosting plans:
19. cPanel Account: cPanel is one of the best and key features to offer to your customers for kickstarting your reseller hosting business.
20. WHM for Linux Hosting: For smooth operating of your Linux reseller hosting, it is important to have Web Hosting Manager (WHM). WHM helps in management of your customer’s accounts.
21. Plesk for Windows: Another effective, flexible and secure web panel, Plesk helps in professional hosting reseller for Windows.
22. WHMCS: WebHost Manager Complete Solution or WHMCS helps in automating your web hosting business. It allows you to control signups, provisioning, billing and also, offers firm support to your business.
23. Softaculous: You get a one-click app installer, Softaculous which allows you to install over 400 applications. You can also upgrade and remove apps from your website with just a few clicks.
24. Custom Nameservers: A specialized server on the Internet, capable of handling queries and questions from your computer, about the domain name’s various services is called a nameserver. With a custom name server, you can run your own name server for responding to DNS request for your domains.
25. Disk space: Disk space allows you to store the data on the web server. You are provided with a certain GB of disk space so, make sure you calculate it prior and see if the disk space will be sufficient.
What would be the Investment Cost for Reseller Hosting Business?
Investment is the most vital part to start any business. Surely, there is some sort of investment to be done for the reseller hosting business. You will find several things to be done before starting your reseller hosting business for making it successful on the internet.
So, below are things for which you will need to invest in:
26. Domain Name: You require a domain name for starting any business on the Internet. Similarly, for reseller hosting business, you will first need to buy your domain name.
For a domain name, you will have to select a unique name, such as ‘bestresellerhosting.com’ and find for the availability of that domain name on the web. It is then possible to book your domain based on your requirement and budget.
27. Web Hosting: The next thing you will need to buy is the hosting for your reseller hosting business website.
28. Website: After buying a hosting plan, you would be developing a website. You can either develop the website using WordPress CMS or hire a web developer.
29. Support Resource: You haven’t developed your website just to make it but also, to run your business effectively and earn from it. So, you will also need to think about your customers’ needs and keep them happy by completing their needs. For this, you will it is important to have a support service that will help in resolving your customers’ queries.
With a customer support service in place, your customers will feel confident about your services. You can efficiently improve your customer support in the below ways:
- Live Chat Option: Live chat is the easy option for both you and your customers. With live chat, you can quickly communicate and won’t require waiting for your turn. So, make sure that your customers get immediate response for their problems.
- Customer Care Number: It is important to have a customer care number that is available for 24/7/365. This will offers way for personal interaction to the customers so that, they can share their issues without any hesitation.
30. Promotional Costs: Setting up your reseller hosting website is just one of the steps in reseller hosting. In order to get your reseller hosting website up, you will need to have a keen attention on promoting it all over the Internet. This means you will need to invest a little so that, you will earn more revenue in the future.
Ideas to Brand and Market Your Reseller Hosting Business
It is highly essential to brand your reseller hosting business, if you want to get more traffic and create an awareness of your website among the audience. Internet is being populated with several new ways for branding and marketing a business. Thus, it isn’t a hard task to get the expected limelight for your website.
For example, Google is well-known for its online advertising service known as Google AdWords. With the use of Adwords, you will be able to get more exposure to your reseller hosting business.
Follow the below easy ways to market and brand your reseller business:
31. Build a Business Blog: Your visitors get engaged and remain for a longer time on your website due to blogging.
Not only it will keep your potential customers engaged but also, will help your website rank better on the search engines.
You can include topics around things your website focuses on the business blog. For example, you can write about hosting and themes for your reseller hosting business as this will help your potential customers. Additionally, they will also get engaged with your blog.
32. List Your Reseller Business Website on Website Directories: A web directory comprises of data that is organized into categories. These are the websites searched by humans but not web-crawlers. In addition, web pages listed here are categorized and sub-categorized, instead of keywords.
There is also a bidding system for ranking your website on the top position in your chosen category. When you submit your reseller web hosting website under the best reseller hosting category, it will surely help interested audience to find you.
33. Increase Your Interaction on Web Hosting Forums and Blogs: On forums, various topics of mutual interest are discussed as well as questions are asked and experiences are shared. You can discuss about reseller hosting on forums and blogs related to reseller hosting programs.
Additionally, you can also discuss on working of reseller hosting, about reseller hosting, the best reseller web hosting company, best reseller hosting plans for you and so on. This will help you to grab the attention of people who are ready to buy web hosting.
34. Opt for Email Marketing: Marketing your business through emails is called as email marketing. It is a crucial type of marketing for reseller hosting because you can design the reseller hosting plans as per the requirements and send them to your potential customers. You can even send newsletters or maybe you can run surveys for your potential customers.
Emails can also be used for promoting your website for upcoming sale, festive offers or a new product launch. Email marketing helps in making your brand popular among the potential customers. MailChimp helps a lot in email marketing.
35. Provide News Releases: News releases offer a best way of sharing a piece of article or communication which is actually newsworthy. You can publish a press release or news release about your achievements, plans, services and so on.
36. Don’t miss Social Media: I am sure you might have built your social media page for your reseller hosting business. This is important as many businesses have their pages built on social media for branding.
Social media also helps your fans and followers to keep engaged about your new services/plans. You can create individual pages for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and more.
Related: 10 Great Tips For Marketing Your Reseller Hosting Business
Ideas to Rank Your Reseller Hosting Website
It is a dream of every website owner to rank his website on the top in search engine results. But is it possible for everyone? Of course not! Because just a single person can be the winner.
There are several websites that manage to rank through SEO using SEM. But as SEM tends to change, sooner or later you will find your competitors getting ahead of you.
Also, SEO keeps on changing and so, no one would like to get penalized for doing something in a wrong way. Google always updates and changes the way of raking websites on the top in search engine.
One of the best ways of being a reseller hosting company is to organically rank your website on search engines. This is just because the organic traffic is more valuable as compared to the traffic coming from pay-per-click. Check the below reasons to organically rank your reseller hosting website:
- You may have to invest little even not at all for organically ranking your website on the search engine pages.
- Organic ranking helps in getting highest rate of return on investment than the other forms of marketing.
- Targeted visitors drive to your reseller hosting website with organic SEO. These targeted visitors can include your potential customers too.
- When you rank on top of search engines organically, you can reap the long term results which aren’t possible with PPC.
- You get great brand visibility with little to no cost.
What are the ways to organically rank your reseller hosting website on search engines?
If your web pages rank in Google’s search listings for important keywords it can offer you incredible value.
Below are the things you can do to rank well in search engines:
37. Figure out a List of Keywords: It is important to decide and create the list of keywords for which you want your website to rank on the top of search engine results.
38. Write Interesting Content: A good content on the website always attracts visitors. Prior to diving deep into technical ways of SEO improvement, it is better to write interesting, compelling and SEO-friendly content on your reseller hosting website.
39. Build Cornerstone Pages: Having more than 10 pages related to similar set of keywords makes it hard for Google to rank your reseller hosting website. So, it is always better to merge your content into a single cornerstone page for ranking well organically on search engines.
40. Optimize Your Page Titles: A web page’s title is defined by the HTML title tag and should be a short description of that page’s content. This is the first thing to appear in the top frames of most web browsers. As per Google, page titles are the second most important on-page SEO element.
41. Write Meta Descriptions: Most search engine pages display meta description below the title. This is very important in terms of SEO and also, enables to make your link clickable.
42. Keep Your URL’s Short and Precise: Short is always easy to remember so, make sure your URLs are short and to-the-point. Such URLs also give an idea what the blog is about at a glance. URLs should include just 2 to 3 words but, if it’s required you can extend it until 4-5.
43. Have a grip on Social Media: When you share your content on social media it gets widely reached. Moreover, it also improves your Google SEO rankings. As per some industry experts, social sharing will continue to increase and enrich the businesses. If you don’t have social media pages, then it’s not too late to create them now.
Ways to Run Your Reseller Hosting Business Effectively
Until now, I have covered everything that you would need to evaluate prior to starting a reseller hosting business.
Now, let’s focus on the technical aspect. To run your reseller web hosting business successfully on day to day basis is a hard job.
Every small aspect matters when running a reseller hosting business. Below are some aspects that you need to consider for running your reseller web hosting business successfully:
44. Basic Account Setup – cPanel Account / WHM: Your first step to run your reseller hosting business successfully should be to set up your basic cPanel account. It doesn’t require technical knowledge to setup a basic cPanel account and can be easily created with the steps below:
Step 1: Log into your WHM control panel and click on ‘Basic cPanel & WHM Setup’ on your left side.
Step 2: Fill up the required information in the Contact Information and the Basic Configuration sections. Mention all the details asked and after completing them, click on ‘Save changes’ and jump to the next step of creating customer accounts.
45. Adding new customer accounts: When every new customer purchases web hosting, you will need to add a new customer’s account.
Step 1: Click on ‘Create a new account’ from your left-side navigation section to add a new customer’s account.
Step 2: Then mention your customer’s domain name. Define a Username and Password to access his/her account. Fill in the other details of your customer as required.
Step 3: Select one of the reseller hosting packages created in the drop-down list. Mention all the other required details, if any and click on create.
46. Managing Hosting Packages: You should properly think before creating, managing or updating your hosting packages.
Check the below steps for creating a new package in your reseller hosting account:
Step 1: Go to the ‘Packages’ section on your left hand-side and click on ‘Add a package’.
Step 2: On the page that displays:
- Define a package name.
- Resources: Figure out the number of each item to be included in the package.
- On the same page update all the settings. Go to the bottom of the page and click on ‘Add to create a package’.
Note: Go to the packages section to edit or delete a package. You can also add a feature.
Conclusion
Are you satisfied with this guide? The 46 things mentioned in this guide are really important to make your reseller web hosting business successful. If you think there’s anything more, you can always add in the comment box below.
