How to Start a Successful Web Hosting Business?
With the rise of new technologies, more and more businesses are coming online. Due to the growth of e-commerce all over the world, entrepreneurs started looking for web hosting companies that can offer them cost-effective services and help them boost their brand’s awareness. While the entry to the web-hosting business can be set up at home and requires little cost, there are still many things you need to know before you launch your own web-hosting business. It takes a lot of knowledge and patience to run a successful business and overcome any obstacles that come along the way. In this article, we will give you some actionable tips how to build your own hosting company.
Decide what type of hosting you want to provide
Before you start building your business, you need to allocate some time, think carefully what products you have the widest knowledge about and identify the products you can handle. There are three ways you can start your own web-hosting business:
- become a reseller
- buy, store and maintain your servers
- use a data center for your servers
The easiest way to learn how to grow a business, upscale your business and gain a competitive advantage in the market is to choose dedicated servers where expert companies monitor and manage the servers.
Cover all the legal basis
To protect yourself legally, you need to cover the legal basis for your business. This includes a Terms of Service Statement, Acceptable Usage Policy, and other necessary documents. You may even consider hiring a lawyer who will guide you through the whole process and make sure you don’t miss any of the legal aspects. Also, you may want to use HostLegal.net to find a good resource for these types of documents.
Become familiar with the latest software
If you want to be proficient at hosting your clients’ websites it’s of great importance to have an extensive knowledge of the latest software and the software you will be using to host your client’s website. Make sure you do an in-depth research and become familiar with the pricing and how the software works. Also, to keep all the things under control, choose the right project management methodology such as critical path method and manage your project with ease.
Financial investment
Like in any business, starting a web-hosting business requires some financial investment. Since the most software on the market, as well as different types of servers your clients will be expecting, are not cheap, keep in mind that you will have to invest a serious amount of money to eventually achieve success. On the other hand, you can opt for a cheaper way, lease a dedicated server and then host your client’s site on that server. Although this is an easy way to start your own company and it requires a small investment, keeps in mind that you will find it difficult to keep control of your business unless you are able to contact your dedicated server provider.
Consider investing in power
Since your hosting accounts will have to be online 24/7 and will need a higher level of power, you will have to ensure that this account is always kept alive even in the case of emergencies. Therefore, investing in power should be on the list of your top priorities.
Consider support team costs
Once you start your business, you will have to manage only a few accounts. However, as the time goes by and the work keeps piling up, there will be many hurdles you will have to jump and multiple tasks to complete in order to achieve success. This is the time when you should consider employing a strong support team that will boost your productivity and helps you finish all the tasks on time. A good communication with a client is the key to success. When you build a good client base, you will need an efficient strategy to extend it and sustain your business. One way to achieve this is to hire system administrators who will identify and fix network issues and maintain an organization’s work flow.
Find the right technology
When starting your web-hosting business, you need to focus your efforts on doing real work and allocate little of your time for less relevant tasks. In other words, you need to have a smarter approach to work. You need to invest in tools that help you make things work faster and make your customers feel satisfied with the final outcome. The easiest way to do this is to invest in the right set of tools and apps such as a web hosting automation software like RackNap or Ensim and project management tools like Active Collab. While RackNap helps you automate all of your business processes, ActiveCollab is a web design project management software helps your team stay on the track and produce positive results within desired timeline and budget.
Also, if you are looking for the way to simplify and automate your billing, WHMCS is the perfect choice for you. On the other hand, if you want to collaborate, track and increase overall productivity use G Suite. Chat Softwares such as Slack and LiveChat are excellent tools that will bring your team’s communication to a whole new level. On top of that, backup software such as Site Vault and Handy Backup will speed up your processes and update your backups on regular basis.
Market your new company
Finally, after you have chosen the right outsourced hosting support, you will need to market and make your customers want to pay for your hosting packages. Naturally, you will have to put a lot of effort to gain competitive advantage and probably struggle to win on price. However, if you make use of a variety of social channels and post the content that will promote your business in the best possible light, you will gain new customers and broaden your customer base.