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Reseller hosting is no different either, a reseller buys a Web
hosting package from a hosting company and tries to sell it
independently. The profit for the reseller lies in either the
discount or in the commission s/he gets from selling an account.

For example: The reseller might purchase a package whose
features are valued at $100 for $90. So, the reseller stands to
make a $10 profit on selling the package to customers. Normally
as the customers increase, so does the profit margin for the
reseller.

Or, you can get some money by earning commissions from a hosting
company. This happens when you refer potential customers to the
hosting company. If the customer signs up with the company then
you earn a small recurring commission until the customer uses
the services.

Most web hosting companies try to outsource their services to
resellers as it helps them to extend their business reach
without the cost of marketing and sales and also helps them to
concentrate on the business side of things.

As a reseller you can decide what kinds of services you can
sell. You can provide shared, dedicated or co-location web
hosting or merchant accounts, store fronts etc.

If you go with hosting then it might be useful to offer some
other hosting related services like domain names, search engines
etc.

Of course, if you have problems selling these value added
services in the beginning then you can sell them later.

The cost of becoming a reseller and the equipment and people
required in order to be successful depends on many factors.

If you just plan to earn commission by referring people to the
hosting company by using the Internet, then you do not have to
put up a lot of money, all you need is an Internet ready PC and
an Internet connection.

For a small start-up not a lot of money and resources are
required. You can purchase a good reseller package from a
hosting company by paying them some money upfront. All that is
needed is a decent computer that can manage the accounts of
customers and a good Internet connection.

It is advisable to start small if you are very new to the
concept of web hosting and reselling. Then you can expand as you
go on and start getting more and more customers in which case
offering domain registration is also a very good way to make
profits.

If you have the money and the experience then you can go as far
as buying all the server equipment required, in which case you
will also be responsible for all the server maintenance costs.

The other option could be leasing a server as this will be
cheaper than buying the server, but here as well you are
responsible for all the maintenance and running costs of the
server.

In the above two cases you also need to make sure that you have
multiple connections with the hosting company so there are no
complications in case a connection goes down.

The best thing about being a reseller is that you do not require
a lot of upfront investment.

There is no need to have a lot of technical knowledge. Account
management and Internet skills are all that is required.
However, it would be really handy if you have some sales and
marketing experience so you can interact with your customers
better.

The hosting company generally provides and maintains all the
hardware and software.

You do not need to hire a lot of IT staff to provide support.
Providing basic support and leaving the more technical issues to
the parent company support staff can be easily achieved.

Support can sometimes be delayed, as you are dependent on the
parent company to handle the technical aspects. If there is a
delay from their side then you along with your customer are
affected.

Sometimes customers leave you if they find out that you are a
reseller and not a real hosting company.

Web hosting services are in very high demand and therefore any
re-seller who knows what they are doing can make a bundle
quickly without too much trouble.

However, just like in any other business, one needs to be
cautious and to be very much aware of exactly what they are
doing.

The first and most important thing you need to do is find a
reliable web hosting service. And that host also needs to have a
good reseller program. There are not too many around that have
this ideal combination but they are there, if you know where to
look.

A reliable web host will mean that the clients you sign up will
not run into problems and in case they do, the host must be able
to provide proper customer service and respond quickly to any
technical problems. This is very important because your reseller
business will grow much faster if your current customers are
able to refer others. Or if you can refer prospective customers
to a portfolio of satisfied current clients.

You will be able to earn more with hosts that already have
reseller programs as they will already have good packages on
offer that you need to pay very little for and yet have high
revenue potential with. Some reseller programs are specifically
designed so that resellers are able to enter the web hosting
business with very low overheads.

These days we have hosting services that have flexible plans.
This will enable you to sign on a higher volume of customers and
should also give you a more reliable and steady stream of
income. In one popular program I know the reseller pays only $
29.95 per Month for 2 GB space/10 GB Bandwidth. If the reseller
has 100 accounts hosted @ $ 6.00/month. He has to bill his
customers every month and will get paid a total of $ 600 income
($ 570.95 Profit)

As a reseller you will also need to have a well thought out plan
on how you are going to market and promote your own web site.
There is no way your reseller program is going to be successful
unless you have a system for attracting enough traffic to your
web site so that you have a good chance of turning a high
percentage of that number into actual paying clients who will
pay the web host you are working with, so that you can in turn
get your reseller commissions.

It is absolutely important for the reseller control panel at the
web host to provide absolute control for you as a reseller to
manage and invoice your clients. This is especially useful where
you have a monthly payment system. In this case good records are
imperative so as to ensure that follow up for payment is made as
easy as possible. There are some hosts that even have private
label features and offer multi lingual control panel.

My first web site was nothing more than a brochure that was transformed into an HTML document and installed on the web. Since then I have learned that web pages can do a lot more than printed brochures, because they can offer several different ways to involve the visitors. Here are some of the ways that I use to bring my sites to life.

The first and most obvious kind of interactivity is to have a way in which someone can send you a message or contact you. You can do this by putting your e-mail address as a “clickable” link on your web pages. This is normally enough, but sometimes people are not surfing on their own computers and can’t click on the mail link because they don’t have an e-mail program on that particular computer. The answer is to put a contact form on the web site. This allows anyone to contact you, no matter where they are surfing. Also, as far as I can see, the contact form seems to get more responses than a simple “mailto” link, perhaps because it requires so little effort to complete.

If you do use a clickable mailto link on your website be sure to encode it and protect your email address from being harvested by spam merchants–see our article.

Forms can be activated by a CGI script, or if you are using Front Page, through the Front Page extensions. If you are unable to use either of these methods then you can get free form processing on a third-party server (such as bravenet.com), but you will have to put up with advertisements or pay a fee to have them removed.

Another way you can involve your readers on a regular basis is to offer a newsletter related to your site. The newsletter or e-zine in its simplest form can be nothing more than an update of new features on your web site. Or you can be more ambitious and write an article on themes related to your web site. For example, if your web site represents your bicycle shop, your newsletter could contain articles about cycling. Explain the scope of your newsletter with an announcement on your web site: “Get updates and information related to the themes of our website in a free e-mail newsletter” followed by a sign-up form where the people can sign up for the newsletter.

Start a Newsletter

In your newsletter provide links to your web site, and your products or services order pages. I find that whenever I send out a newsletter, traffic on the website increases as do orders for my products. Also provide information on how people can subscribe and unsubscribe, and tell people to forward the newsletter to friends and people who might be interested in your website.

You can keep people coming back to your site by using a bulletin board or online forum. The beauty of the bulletin board is that your visitors create your content. However, in order for this to work you must have enough traffic. If you have a Britney Spears fan site, then it should be no problem to get your bulletin board up and running. If your site doesn’t have a strong flow of visitors there is still a way in which you can use a bulletin board. Hold a special forum. Announce, on your site and in your newsletter, a specific period in which there will be a discussion on a topic: “Visit our special forum on Racing Bicycles which will be held from September 1-5. Participating in the discussion will be the webmaster and his staff of racing experts”. This is a good way to tie together your newsletter and your bulletin board to sustain interest in your site.

Put Up a Bulletin Board

In order to have a bulletin board you may have to install a script on your site. Or perhaps your hosting firm has a pre-installed bulletin board script. You can get bulletin board scripts for free or for a small fee. If you are not able to install a bulletin board once again you can get one hosted on another server for free (with advertisements) or for a monthly fee (without advertisements).

Finally, here is another idea on how to draw your visitors into the site. You’re an expert on something, that’s why you have your website! Start a questions and answers column on the site let your web visitors send in their questions and you and or your team of experts can give the answers. Award a prize to the person who sends in the best question of the month. It will help you to generate some useful and new content for your site and also let you know what your web visitors are thinking.

Taking this further, you can offer free advice on a one-to-one basis for visitors who have questions related to your product or service. Put a form on your web site. It can be right next to your product’s order button. Give the people a chance to either order your product or ask for more information. By offering good advice you will win the confidence of your web visitors, some of whom will eventually go on to purchase your products or services.

Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor, and social worker. He has been
working on the Internet since 1995 and is the proprietor of A1-Optimization,
http://www.a1-optimization.com, a firm providing search engine optimization,
copywriting, reciprocal linking, and other web promotion services. He
publishes a monthly ezine, A1-Web Promotion Tips, available at
http://www.a1-optimization.com/newsletter.html