There have always been “Get Rich Quick” schemes. They almost never work.
Do you know a single person that’s gotten rich quickly? Or even easily, for that matter?
I’m guessing you haven’t. If you have, stop reading this and email me how they did it. I’d love to retire tomorrow.
We all know that getting rich typically takes a lot of hard work. Becoming a successful Web Hosting Reseller isn’t any different. It can be, however, an extremely satisfying and lucrative opportunity. Here’s what you need to know to get started:
1. Learn the Fundamentals
As is the case with starting any business, you’ll want to understand the basics. You’ll need to understand the hosting options you have so you know what types of hosting options you can provide your clients. A solid knowledge base of back end processes is important, otherwise you’ll be taking support tickets and simply forwarding them onto your provider, which will slow things down.
You’ll also need to have a strong desire to learn about new technologies. This is an industry that is constantly evolving. You must be able to evolve with it if you want to stay in business.
2. Buy Your Own Servers or Rent Server Space?
- Dedicated Servers: Renting dedicated servers is a great way to get started as a web hosting reseller for a number of reasons. You’ll have an entire server to play with, meaning only you and your clients will have access to it. This is a major benefit because it will help ensure security, as you won’t be sharing that space with unknown entities. It also ensures that the performance of the sites you host on it won’t be affected by traffic spikes on other sites as easily, as you’ll have more computing power to work with.
- Colocated Servers: If you do happen to own your own servers, you should get them into a data center and let them make money for you! Colocating your machine will afford you more bandwidth than you’re likely to have access to if it just sat in your closet at home. You’ll experience most of the same benefits of renting a dedicated server, but this is a nice option if you’re someone who wants to own their own machines.
Get More Info about becoming a ColoCrossing Reseller!
- VPS Hosting: A Virtual Private Server is product that divides one server into virtual server allowing you to host websites as if they’re on a dedicated server, but they’re actually sharing space with many others. This is a really cool option for those just starting out, although we typically recommend that you make the initial investment in a dedicated server if your budget allows for it. The fact is that a VPS will have limited ability to handle high traffic to sites. If there is a spike in traffic to one of your clients sites, it will affect the performance of the entire network you’re providing. If you’re positive you’ll be only hosting medium to low traffic sites, then this would be a very viable option.
- Shared Hosting: This is the most common type of web hosting for resellers that are just starting out. Low cost is achieved by allowing the reseller to host it’s clients sites on a server shared by many other sites. If you’re only selling to clients with low traffic, this is certainly an option. As with VPS Hosting, though, you run the risk of one specific site creating performance problems for many clients. You’re also going to open yourself up to potential DDoS attacks and Data Breaches, as you’ll never know who else is hosting on that particular server.
3. Set Up Your Control Panel
You’ll need a way to handle support tickets from clients. It’s important that you use either the same control panel as your provider, or one that seamlessly integrates with your providers. WHMCS is one of the more popular, but there are plenty to choose from, including HostBill, ClientExec, and BoxBilling. If your provider has an open API you’ll be able to take your pick, assuming the control panel you select allows you to do so.
The reason you’ll want a control panel that allows your clients to access your control panel with your provider is pretty simple: in this industry, support tickets come at all hours of the day, and must be dealt with in a timely fashion, or you’ll soon be out of business. If you were to try to handle every single ticket manually, you’d end up working 24/7/365.
4. Ask Potential Providers the Right Questions
- Do they own their data center?
- Do they guarantee 100% Uptime?
- What ISPs does the data center offer?
- What was their average uptime over the past year?
- What types of redundancies do they have in place?
- What type of support do they offer? Is it 24/7/365? Do they over phone support? Email Support? Etc.
- Where is the data center located? Consider what types of natural disasters might effect that region.
If you follow these guidelines, you’ll be in good shape to select a provider and get your business up and running. There will always be more questions to answer. If you’d like some help, feel free to contact us here, and we’d be happy to help with anything we can.
