subject: Become a Web Host and earn Residual Income [print this page] Becoming a web host is one of those few opportunities that earn residual income for the average person. Residual income is simply income that you work once for but receive payments again and again for. Many, many business opportunities require you to sell to new customers over and over again. With the web hosting business, you only need to sell them once and most customers will stay with you for years and years. So what's involved in become a web host provider?
First, there are three different ways you can earn money from marketing cheap web hosting services. The first and the simplest is to be an affiliate of a reliable web hosting company. As an affiliate, you don't have to worry about doing any of the technical support that may come up from time to time. This is the biggest advantage to being an affiliate. The disadvantage is that as a general rule, you don't own the customer, the web hosting company does. Also, unless you can drive a lot of traffic to the web hosting company, you will only receive limited commissions.
The second level of participation is to become a reseller of web hosting services. At this level you own the customer. You are also responsible for all technical support to that customer. If you setup your business properly, your customer never needs to know that you are not the main web hosting company. This is a good starting place if you have limited technical knowledge and want the safety net of having a web hosting company that can hold your hand through technical problems while making a decent income.
There are disadvantages of being a reseller. One of the biggest is that you are at the mercy of your web hosting provider's security practices. If they are not maintaining their servers properly, your business could go down the tubes with theirs. You can usually keep this possibility to a minimum by becoming a reseller to only the largest web hosting providers. You also have less flexibility for meeting customer needs as you are not the one ultimately in control of the server your service is on.
The flip side to these disadvantages is that you don't have to spend time securing the server and keeping up with all the security updates that invariably come up.
The third and most involved level is to become a cheap hosting provider. This level gives you the most flexibility with your product offerings. It also maximizes your profit potential as there are no middle men between you and the customer. It can also be scary because of the level of responsibility that you face in running your own web hosting business.
So which one is right for you? It depends on a number of factors of course. How technically capable are you to deal with the support issues of your customers? If you have no background in computers or networking, you may want to go with simply being an affiliate. If you have some background in technical matters, a reseller is a good choice. This is especially true if you are already working as a web designer. Finally, if you have technical know-how and a willingness and desire to learn, becoming a web host provider can be very profitable and rewarding.
