subject: Web Hosting - How To Start Your Own Company? [print this page] One of the most lucrative businesses online these days is web hosting. On the face of it, it seems very easy to launch into this business, but as you go along, things can get pretty complex. So, it's best to bear a few essential points in mind before setting up your own web hosting company.
Quite obviously, the first point to bear in mind is to get your site up and running. For this, you would need a template, a few pages on the nature of your business, your products and services and future plans. After this, configure a program that will help you receive your customer's web hosting order.
Next comes the most challenging part of setting up your web hosting company-selling the service. This is a very competitive market, so it's important that you reach out to as many people as possible. Plus, you need to sell your service reasonably. To be successful, you need to develop a marketing plan that keeps you ahead of the competition.
With the above in place, you now need to institute customer support-a big component in your line of business. Your customers are going to need technical support at any time, so make it available 24x7. If you default here, your clients will find other service providers.
If you have clients with very large websites, as the web hosting company, you will need to offer dedicated web hosting services. Obviously, this is because their need is far above the limit of shared hosting services. Once you give them dedicated services, their speeds will gallop and they will want to remain as your clients.
Having said that, you must realize that there are some challenges that accompany dedicated servers. Dedicated servers call for time, expense and maintenance, which is naturally much more than what a shared server would make you incur.
Before you get your first client, you need to create a welcome email. This should include a confirmation of your client's specific plan details, a user name and temporary password, any DNS/registrar changes, a link to the control panel, instant access to e-mail and FTP and links to the FAQ section and Helpdesk.
Now, it's time to install billing software so that your prospective web hosting clients can place their orders and renew it easily. Mesh your payment gateways with this software so that you can accept payments made by credit card. To put a good payment gateway into place, sign up for a merchant account.
Once you have the above in place, you're ready to start your own web hosting company. Before taking the plunge, look at all aspects of the business and ensure that you have the time it requires to run your web hosting business and to provide good customer service.
