How To Start A Reseller Hosting Business

You have made the decision to start up your own cheap unlimited reseller hosting company. Great! You've taken the first step by choosing the type of hosting services you'll provide.

You know that offering your customers cheap unlimited reseller hosting is a better option than offering shared web hosting. If you own a graphic design or coding business, adding an additional hat of hosting reseller gives you total control of the websites of your clients. But now that you've made the choice, what's next? Here's a handy guide on starting your own reseller hosting company.

1. Business Plan

Any business needs a business plan, outlining goals and guidelines, as well as discussing the funds needed to start the company. When drafting your business plan, be sure to touch upon the following:

• Who is your target audience, and why will they come to you first?
• Does your business exist to compete with other cheap unlimited reseller hosting companies, or are you offering something completely different?
• What equipment will you need? You only need a powerful computer (if you choose a laptop, you can work from anywhere) and the best high speed internet you can afford. Depending on the services you plan to offer, you might also need specialized software and a plan for tech support.
• What will it cost? You'll want to factor in start-up costs, the costs associated with developing your websites, advertising, the cost of the hosting services you'll be reselling (which can further be broken down: bulk rate the hosting company is charging for reselling domain names, leased equipment charges you might acquire, etc.), tech support, and/or business support.

Of course, not all of these will apply, but you'll want to do your research prior to choosing a hosting company so you know what to expect.

2. Laws Pertaining To Cheap Unlimited Reseller Hosting

Go through all of the different ways you can legally structure your business: sole proprietorship, general and limited partnership, and limited liability company. Do your homework before you commit. Each one is different as to the organizational options offered, so you'll want to verify it works for you. A lawyer and tax accountant would be a tremendous help here, aiding you in determining the different liability problems that might arise with each option.

3. Choosing Your Hosting Provider

If you're looking to offer cheap unlimited reseller hosting services, you'll obviously be looking for a hosting provider that can give you top quality service at a low price, allowing you to charge less for the hosting services you sell. It's almost a no-brainer. A good place to start is with a volume discount reseller. This allows you to resell individual shared hosting packages at a great, low price. It keeps costs down, which is a good thing.

You should look for a host that:

• is reliable
• provides reseller hosting services that leave you with a profit (again, no-brainer)
• specializes in reselling hosting services
• provides assistance in getting your business up and running
• provides stellar uptime, connectivity, and support

4. Web Presence

With the number of cheap unlimited reseller hosting options already out there to compete against, you'll want to be sure your website stands out from the rest. You might come up with a cute name, but if your website doesn't perform well, you might lose customers before they even read a word about what you have to offer. Besides a pleasing design, you'll want to assure page loads are quick, navigation is simple, and content is added simply and easily with a basic HTML editor.

5. Promote, Promote, Promote

SEO is ridiculously important, sometimes more so than traditional advertising. Be sure you are mindful of this so that you are ranked high on Google. AdWords is a good option, as well as starting up social media sites linked up to your business. With as popular as social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are, it's almost essential you have some form of social media presence.

Above all, if you are able to maintain great customer relationships, that is an easy way to acquire and keep new customers, which secures the future of your cheap unlimited reseller hosting company.

Have you decided to start a reseller hosting business? Is there anything you'd like to know that isn't mentioned here? Let us know, and we can touch on it in a future article.