Platform and Control Panel Choice
The platform on which you are going to base your first reseller hosting package or server is an important choice, since it can affect the final choice of prospective customers because of their needs; the control panel which you choose to provide your customers with can also affect your ability to gain customers - this is because some might be more familiar with one control panel which they have used in the past rather than the one that you have chosen to provide them with. In terms of the platform which you choose to base your web hosting packages on, you are limited to two options which are used by most of the main players within the website hosting industry - these are Windows and Linux; Windows is a commercial operating system which you can only use upon the purchase of a license from its manufacturer, Microsoft - Linux on the other hand is an open source operating system which requires no paid for license to allow you to run it, which means you are able to install it on as many computer as you want without the need to pay for any licenses what-so-ever. Platforms and operating systems you should check out include:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and 2008 - http://www.microsoft.com/servers/default.mspx
- CentOS Linux - http://www.centos.org/
- Ubuntu Linux - http://www.ubuntu.org/
There are many different web hosting control panels out there on the market for you to choose from, although your final choice normally boils down to what your web host is able to provide you with since their prices are normally a lot cheaper than if you were to buy a license for a piece of control panel software direct from the supplier; this means that although there may be many different control panels for you to choose from, you are in a sense limited by your web host since they will most likely be unable to provide you with every control panel. When choosing a control panel on which you are going to base your web hosting packages, you should check out all features of the control panels which you are testing - this means that you should always check out the client and reseller panels as well as the administration panel to ensure that you get a good idea of how easy the control panel will be for your customers to use, as well as for the customers of customers to use in terms of resellers; you should also get other people who aren’t so computer ’savvy’ to test out the same control panels as you, since this ensures that the control panel which you choose to base your web hosting packages on is usable for all people. In most cases, the control panel which you choose to base your web hosting packages upon is chosen in relation to the operating system on which you want to base your web hosting packages, since some control panels are only able to work with one operating system whereas others come in multiple versions so that they can be run on most well known operating systems; for example cPanel has been designed for use on Linux distributions only, although a version for Microsoft Windows 2008 is currently in development, and Plesk is a control panel that has been designed for use on both Microsoft Windows and Linux website hosting platforms - this means that you can use the control panel for either operating system. There are many different web hosting control panels on the market, although the main ones which you should take a look at include:
- cPanel - http://www.cpanel.net/
- Parallels (Formally SWSoft) Plesk - http://www.parallels.com/en/products/plesk/
- LXAdmin - http://lxlabs.com/software/lxadmin-sse/
The actual choice of operating system on which you are going to base your web hosting packages can be affected by the skills which you have to administrate a server, in the case that you have opted to go for either a virtual private server or a dedicated server; this is because administering a server can be a complicated task at the best of times, which means that if you don’t have the necessary skills to administrate the server which you have purchased, you might not be able to provide your customers with good service, since it means that if a problem does occur with the server, you won’t be able to fix it. Although your web host might provide support for their virtual private server and dedicated server hosting packages, the support provided might not cover all issues - this might be because it is limited to upgrading third party software that is provided, and that the support staff are not obliged to fix any internal problems with the server; this means that you should try and get your server administration skills up to scratch before embarking on purchasing a hosting package which would provide you with a dedicated environment.
Billing Systems
One of the main components of a successful web hosting business is a web based billing and account management system, so that your customers are able to pay their web hosting bills online and so that you are able to manage and view your customers details as well as packages that they have purchased through a web interface with ease; this means that if you have a numerous amount of customers, you can easily manage them online and contact them quickly and easily as appropriate, if needs be.
Most web host billing systems are not just billing systems, for example some have help desk systems built into them, and as mentioned before, you can also use them to easily manage your customers - even if you happen to have millions of them; this means that you can have an all in one system where you can meet your customers needs in both the areas of support and management. A support help desk system within a billing system allows your customers to open ‘support tickets‘ which are then assigned a unique id so that you are able to manage them easily, and are able to refer to tickets quickly if a customer was to quote you the ticket’s unique id via some other method of communication, such as over the telephone. Most support ticket systems allow correspondence for any ticket via 2 methods - email and a web interface; most systems employ a technology known as ‘email piping‘ which collects the emails from a specified email inbox and them processes them to be displayed within the web interface which should be provided - ticket replies from staff members are emailed back to the email address of the person who opened the ticket and replies from the customer are piped through to the web interface, the web interface itself shows the correspondence between the two parties in order so that you can quickly read through the correspondence if you have the need to.
All good web host billing systems incorporate a large range of payment gateways, so that you can are able to use the payment gateway of your choice to receive payments from your customers for the web hosting services that they have purchased from you - this process is a lot quicker than having to process old fashioned types of payment such as personal cheque; when looking for billing systems, you might also discover API systems for third part fraud detection systems - these are in place to safe guard the security of both your business, and the potential victims - these systems normally mark certain orders as fraud if they are believed to be fraud.
If you are starting out in the web hosting market, then you should always consider buying a license for a piece of billing software that you are able to pay for on a monthly lease, since this means that you are not loosing any money on your billing system if your web hosting business was to fail for some reason or another - if funds do not allow for a monthly lease then you can easily consider a free alternative, although the features of these can be relatively limited when compared to those of their commercial counterparts. As is the case with control panels, you and others should always test both the client and administration side of any web host billing system before you purchase anything; this is because it will allow you to gain the feedback of others apart from yourself which you can then use to help you make your final decision about which web hosting billing system you are going to use for your new web hosting company. You should also consider the installation service for your chosen application which is most probably provided by the company from which you purchased the application; this is because you can ensure that a full and secure installation of the application concerned has been done, to give you peace of mind - it also means that you can have the application installed for you in the situation that you don’t have the necessary knowledge to carry out the task. Although there are many different web hosting billing systems, the main ones which one should have a look at include:
- WHMCS - http://www.whmcs.com/
- ModernBill - http://www.modernbill.com/
- PHPCoin - http://www.phpcoin.com/
Marketing Your Web Hosting Business
Once you have the basics of your new web hosting business laid out and operational, you need to start promoting it where possible so that you can start receiving new customer sign ups, which in turn will help boost your business’s income and customer base. There are many different ways in which you can market and promote your new business in the beginning - some of these options being ones which you have to pay for, and others which are free but require your hard work and will power to ensure that they produce the results that you want; an example of a paid for method which you could use to help promote and market your new web hosting business would be you buying an SEO package from either your web host or from another specialist to ensure that your business’s website gets listed and indexed by all the major search engines on the internet, an example of a free method would be you optimizing your own website so that search engines will give it a higher page rank, and in turn send more visitors to your website through the use of key word searches.
If you have the necessary funds to do so, then you can consider using certain PPC (pay per click) programs to help get adverts for your new business placed on participating publisher websites; most PPC programs deploy adverts on publisher websites based on keywords which you enter when creating the advert, as well as the category which the webmaster of the publishing site has decided to place their website in - this means that your advert will be targeted at people who are on websites most likely looking for web hosting, which ensures that the right people will be sent to your website and will hopefully in turn purchase a web hosting package off you. SEO can play a big roll in the amount of visitors which you receive to your website, this is because the more SEO friendly your website is, the higher the page rank search engines will give you. A higher page rank means in the terms of most search engines that your website will appear higher in the results for certain key word searches. Main different companies run PPC programs, although the main ones which are used by many include:
- Google Adwords - http://www.google.com/adwords/
- Yahoo Overture - http://www.overture.com/
- AdBrite - http://www.adbrite.com/
Basic SEO involves the editing of content on your website to ensure that it is as keyword rich as possible - the more common key words which you decide to use within your content, the more subjects and searches that search engines will link your website to; other basic SEO techniques including the building up of back links to your website from other websites of a similar subject - this will help since it will mean that people who are looking at web hosting related websites might actually be looking for web hosting - and when they see a link to your website, they will most likely click and if they like the look of your packages and prices, will buy their web hosting off you. In some cases you can also do link exchanging with websites of a similar subject to yours; this process involves the placing of a link to your website on that of another website, and then you will link back to the other website involved. Although you might be tempted to purchase a program or plan from another web host which claims to increase the amount of traffic to your website, you should always be cautious when looking at these plans and should never spend too much money on things such as this; this is because all these plans do in most cases is submit your website to other search engines which it might not already be in - although this may sound good at first, it might not give the increased amount in visitors which it claims to provide. If you don’t have the necessary knowledge for SEO, nor the funds to splash out on a special package then you could always hire a professional who might be able to do it for you at a cut rate.
Conclusion
In conclusion, with the use of the correct domain name you can help make your business’s name memorable for your customers; this in itself can help you out since it means that if your name is memorable, then it will be easier for your customers to refer their friends and colleagues who need web hosting to your business. You should also now know to consider the client side of a control panel when you are testing it and deciding whether to use as part of your web hosting business or not; by putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and getting the opinions of others on certain things can help produce the best results for your business, and can make your customers happier with the service which they are receiving.
Even though you might be putting yourself in the customer’s shoes, you should still consider how usable the administration side of an application or control panel is for you; this is because you will be using the administration panels day in and day out if your business is to be successful, and it is because of this that you should ensure that you can easily familiarize yourself with the applications and control panels which you will be using. Marketing your web hosting business is one of the most important tasks that you will ever carry out; this is because the amount of customer which you receive to your business will depend on how well you market your website, and whether you carry out a good level of SEO - this will mean making sure that your content is keyword rich, and that you have a large amount of back links so that people can find your business from other websites, and so that search engines give you a higher page rank.
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