how to start a web hosting business

A lot of people have asked me, what is the best business for working at home? While there is no simple answer to this I will write a few articles over many entry level business for the intrepreneur (“Yes, I know I just made the word up.”). The first outlet we will be looking into is website hosting and how to make your empire. Throughout this article we will discuss the various aspects of webhosting and how to attract new clientele.

When you think of website hosting you think or you should think of a web server. You should then realize that a proper connection to host this web server will be entirely too expensive for a small startup. Don’t worry, here is the way around this issue, pick a datacenter to conduct business with such as ServerMatrix, ThePlanet or iWeb. This way you pay a monthly leasing fee to the datacenter to use their bandwidth and equipment which significantly lowers your cost during startup. While picking a server make sure you pick a server with enough resources to host x amount of people for x amount of money so you can make a profit.

While choosing a server make sure that you entertain a few thoughts, if you are not a web designer, programmer or a system administrator than you should opt to use a control panel, the favorite is cPanel but if you insist to go with a windows server over Linux than Plesk is the better bet for your control panel. These control panels allow you to define hosting plans and even automate the process of deploying accounts for new clients. This is crucial as people in this age require instant gratification. I would not recommend you go without a control panel unless you are a savvy system administrator.

Once your server is up and you have your control panel operational you will need to grab a domain as always I recommend GoDaddy for domain service. Attach your domain to your control panel that way you can have proper nameservers for your clients.

Now that your domain is associated with your control panel it may take up to forty-eight hours to propagate. After this is done log back into your control panel and define your hosting account, how much bandwidth, email accounts, etc.

Now as I have said in previous articles host are a dime a dozen, so you need to find a niche in order to profit. Think of this why would I host with you and not Globat an industry leader? Well you may provide a service that only hosts shopping carts, or other scripts such as build a niche store.

Once you have a niche sit back take a breath and start bookmarking, posting on forums and advertising your site anyway you can. Be sure to limit your advertising budget to something you can afford.

Once you build your organic traffic and start gaining clients, exit. Yes that is right you should sale your business to someone else. Take the amount of your client multiply it by five then multiply that number by twelve then add in all of the expenses you encountered while opening the business and you have your sell price.

You may wonder why exit so soon? The fact is this as I said hosting companies are a dime a dozen, you will not get rich by hosting a niche, you will have a good run but then it will be over. You want to be out from under your business before that run is over.

Now that your feet are wet and you have a good feel for e-business it is time to move on to bigger and better things.

I will post more articles on entry and mid-level business, but don’t expect me to give away all my secrets! As always join the fan club and leave a comment if you have questions I will try to answer them in a timely manner.