Ways to Profit from Web Hosting
Tuesday, May 31st, 2011The massive business of web hosting is a world-wide endeavor practiced by many companies large and small. There are specific needs in equipment in order to compete in the competitive field of web hosting. Web hosts are not limited to simple service provisions and client web site hosting. They often provide many other ways to make money for its clients. Being the highly competitive business it is they are always looking for more ways to utilize services to make money.
If a web host has the capabilities for it there are ample ways for them to utilize their existing service and maximize their potential. These services help to increase their income and their relationships with their clients.
Below are some of the methods that can help the web hosts to make money.
Tips to Make Money with Web Hosting
Reselling: This is a very popular method of creating extra income that does not require much effort. A web master buys a hosting package at a discount and resells it at a higher price. Sound simple? Both the web master, and the web host makes money on the proposition and everybody is happy. Large amounts of income are created with this method and some web masters make a great deal of money fast with this method. It isn’t quite as easy as it sounds, however. First, there is an initial investment to be made and the only return is if you are successful in reselling the service. Some space is required and that like is provided for a small business isn’t enough. A web master needs to acquire enough space and bandwidth to begin the service. After the acquisition of the space is acquired they can sell it to other users in broken up portions. Each new customer pays them on a monthly basis. The procedure then repeats over and over.
Using the original service resellers make their money just like that. The money from the monthly fees is pocketed by the reseller. The advantage to this method is the reseller doesn’t have to go through the trouble of buying the equipment or hiring IT staff. The pay they receive is for simply setting up the accounts of the new customer. Often the reseller purchases space from the original provider at a discount of about 10%. The resellers profit is determined by the amount of space the original server allows and the size of that space.
This is an advantageous position to be in as the reseller does not have to provide for assistance and support in their packages. With the development of this industry, and the heavy competition developing some resellers are beginning to realize the need to offer these services however, in order to remain competitive. Reselling has a low overhead since it can be operated largely from home. All that is needed is the initial investment of origin host space. Some reseller companies grow so fast, however that they end up needing outside office space to contain the business.
Advertisement: The host can also put ads on their free websites provided to clients thereby playing off the traffic they bring in. The disadvantage to the free site hosting is that most of the sites that use them are small business, or personal users that do not generate enough traffic to generate large incomes from the advertising.
Other Services to Generate Extra Income:
* Search engine optimization: A web hosts clients know they want traffic. They generally do not know how to get it. This is an advantage for an enterprising web host who can create a system for the clients wishing to have a popular website. By offering these techniques a client can gain information on the various search engines, and the host can, for a fee, submit the client’s URL to the searchers such as Yahoo, MSN, Google and any of the hundreds of engines.
Offer website templates: Those web hosts who are established in their fields can increase their monthly income from the profession by providing low price services to the clients. These incomes are more like top ups and can also increase the reputation of the company. The web hosts can offer clients to purchase their website templates. Companies can also provide clients TemplateMonster.Com and earn more per sale basis.
* Domain names: This is a lucrative service as all clients will need their own domain name. Any web host that isn’t supplying domain names for their clients is losing out on valuable income potential. Registration and transfer of domain names as well as domain parking earns consistent income for a hosting provider. There are various companies to work though to obtain this service such as Domain People, and e Nom.
* Providing Site Builders: Offering an expansive web creation wizard that is user friendly is a great way to expand a web host’s income. Clients want visually appealing sites that they can create themselves and this service will also lure them to the web host. By acting as a easy access, one stop service and offering all the items a customer needs to build a site they can create a big reputation quickly. Customers these days are very savvy and know what to look for in a good site builder so it must offer all of the common features.
Never Oversell:
Due to the massive number of possibilities for making extra money with a web hosting service there is a tendency to oversell. This can be particularly troublesome and even disastrous. This happens when a intermediary web host sells more space than it has available. Too many clients using a small space create bandwidth problems and slow downs and may even cause the system to crash, taking down the origin host as well. Great care must be taken to judge the space and bandwidth before hand and caution not to exceed that space taken. The web host’s reputation is at stake.
Web hosting is a legitimate and lucrative way to make money online. By nature it depends on the abilities of its operator as well as the quality of the equipment and services to which it has access. The most secure way to establish a web host service is to start small and grow with your expanding abilities over time.
About the author: William MacMahon is web hosting analyst for WebHostingMadness.com. Visit WebHostingMadness.com to join him on his search for the top web hosting companies each month.
