Reseller hosting is a type of web hosting where you don’t actually run or manage any servers yourself. Instead, you rent out these servers under your own company name and then sublease the server space to customers. You can create your own hosting plans, take payments, and offer additional features such as email and website backups.
Now that you have a general understanding of what reseller hosting is, let’s dive into how you can turn a profit with reseller hosting.
1. Choose a Niche:
There’s a lot of hosting competition out there, so to succeed, you’ll need to find a niche to focus on. For instance, you could focus on becoming the go-to host for businesses in your local area. Or, you could cater to plumbers or lawyers. You could even use it as an add-on service to your website design business.
The best reseller hosting will have plans that focus on the needs of the niche market you have chosen. For example, if your chosen market is businesses near you, you will want to make sure to offer hosting on a server that’s nearby to increase speed and improve search engine rankings.
2. Decide What Type of Hosting You’ll Offer:
When it comes to reseller hosting, you’ll likely have a few different types of hosting that you can offer. You’ll need to decide if you want to provide shared hosting, VPS hosting, or dedicated server plans. Additionally, you may want to consider offering niche-specific hosting like WordPress or Drupal hosting.
Furthermore, depending on the parent hosting company you use, you might also offer services like domain name management, email accounts, etc. This can help you stand out by becoming a one-stop shop for all your clients’ needs.
3. Figure out Customer Support:
As a reseller host, you must provide superior customer support. In fact, a significant group of satisfied customers is the best way to advertise.
Customer support begins the second someone arrives at your website. If they have any questions, they should be able to reach someone through live chat right away. Furthermore, your website needs to be easy to use. It should guide your visitors seamlessly through the process of signing up for your web hosting services.
After your clients have signed up for web hosting, they should get a welcome email that clearly explains the steps they need to take to set up their hosting account. This email should also explain how they can reach a representative if they have any questions about the setup.
You’ll also need to offer technical support. In some cases, the host parent company will include support as part of their reseller package. This means that they’ll handle all support requests. As a result, you won’t have to spend time catering to every client or be available 24/7.
4. Create a Marketing Plan:
When you focus on a specific niche, it’s easy to focus your marketing efforts because you already understand your target audience’s needs. This will make it easy to design campaigns that show how your hosting solution addresses your niche’s problems.
Knowing what to say in your advertising is just the first step. The next step is figuring out how you’re going to reach these potential clients. Some things you might want to consider are blogging, search engine marketing, and social media advertising. You might also want to consider affiliate marketing non-competitive sites in your niche.
Decide on the approach you’re going to take and create measurable campaigns. If you have a smaller budget, just start with some organic methods like blogging until you have the money to invest in paid marketing campaigns.
5. Scale your Business:
Once you have your first few customers, you should begin to break even. However, it all depends on the price you’re paying for reseller hosting, how much you’re selling your services for, and what your initial startup costs were. When you’ve recovered your initial expenses, you’ll be able to reinvest these funds back into your business to attract even more customers and begin to turn a profit.
A great thing about reseller hosting is that your target audience has a high customer lifetime value. This means that if you provide excellent service, they’ll stay with you for a very long time. As a result, you can pay more upfront for customer acquisition as every new customer is worth a lot to your business.
Summary:
You should now understand what reseller hosting is and how you can start your own reseller hosting business. To review, the steps you need to take to turn a profit with reseller hosting are:
- Find a niche market,
- Figure out what kind of hosting to offer,
- Create a customer service plan,
- Invest in a marketing plan, and
- Look for ways to scale your business.