So I've got a small resellers account and now I'm looking for some advice on how I can potentially turn that into some extra income. I've got my "hosting" domain set up but I still need to actually make the site and whatnot. I"ve got 1GB of space and 20GB of bandwidth to work with. I'm thinking I'll go with something fairly simple though. But first I've got some questions I was hoping someone could offer some input on....
How do you deal with payment for web hosting services? I've noticed that some people have these "subscription" payments through Paypal. It looks like you pay, and Paypal will automatically make a charge on a monthly or yearly basis? Is that available to anyone with a Paypal account, or do you have to set up a business or something? Does Paypal automatically handle everything, or does it just send an email or something when someone's payment is due?
What other ways are there to manage clients? A spreadsheet? Whats the best way to keep track of your business? I've seen mentioned some free cart / payment programs, but I would still have to accept payments via either paypal or checks...I'm not at the point where I could do CCs directly.
What about support? I also have my own domain for myself and some friends on another host, and I offer them free email addresses and space. I know that on the few occasions my host has had problems, they all come to me asking whats going on and how long its going to be, etc. And this is for just 4 users who are getting a free service. One of them depends on his email for important personal mail, and even though he's getting it for free and I've only occasionally experienced problems, he's always pushing the "whens it going to be back up" when they do happen. From there I always have to work with my host to find out whats up, which isn't a problem as all my hosts' service has always been great, but its a concern of mine. How do you deal with potential service problems when other people are paying you for the service?
Somewhat related, for general help, should you just go with email support, or a ticket system, or just a forum or something? Plus, if you host those on your reseller account, and something happens with the host server, doesn't that defeat the whole purpose? How do you suggest setting up support on a different host or something?
What are some suggested packages or services to offerand at what pricing? I was thinking basic email like
you@yourdomain.com would be easiest, but whats the best way to do that? Offer to register the domain name, set up the account, and give them their DA info? How much space and what price is decent? It doesn't seem like someone would pay 20/yr (~10 for the name registration plus 10 for the hosting) for a paltry 10 or 20MB of space when they can get a gmail or yahoo address with gobs of room for free, even if it is a custom domain name.
What about web site hosting? What is a good starting point size-wise and price-wise? I'm talking with a friend about selling his a package, and I was thinking something like 100MB and 1GB of bandwidth for around 60/yr - he's going to register his own name and he's a close friend. Whats a good price point for something like that for "everyone else"? Do you/should you offer web design with that, too? If people are looking to host their own website, would they be comfortable enough working with DA and ftp to set up their own stuff, or not?
How or who do you target potential customers? Take an ad out in the paper? I'm around a college, so post something on the student message boards or something? I would think you'd need to stay away from fairly technical people as they probably already have their own hosting setups anyway. Does the whole web hosting thing hinge on peoples ignorance of the abundance of discount hosting packages that seem to be all over AT and WHT and here, etc.?
Do you just find businesses who have crappy websites and make them an offer? I see some of the local ISP's offering hosting, and their prices are outrageous - like 400-500/month for a site and whatnot, and it seems like if I could offer them the same for half that, I'd be making back multiple times what the hosting is costing me plus some crazy profit. But then, I'd think it would be even more stressful hosting for a business who probably has more expectations that would an individual who is making a personal site.
Sorry if this is a little long...it just seems like I'm sitting on something that could offer a lot of potential and I'm doing nothing and really have little idea of where to start. Thanks for everything!
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