Low cost hosting

Starting a business can be a very scary thing but if you are inadequately prepared, starting an Internet Business can be even more so. Where do I begin? What should I expect? How much should this cost? I hope to answer some of the common questions asked by business owners wanting to setup a website.

First you must register a domain name. This will be the address for your setup. Websites need to contain keywords but also need to be attractive to human readers, so do not get carried away by keyword1-keyword2-keyword3.com domain names. Keywords do help, but you want a name that is able to be branded as well. I register all of my domains with godaddy.com. They start at around $8 a year for a regular .com registration but sometimes you can get a good discount if you sign up for another godaddy service such as private registration. This keeps your contact information hidden from the public. If you would like to see what kind of information is publicly available, do a Google search for Who Is when ever you get the chance.

The next task is to decide where you will host your site. The two most common types of hosting are Shared Web Hosting and Dedicated Web Hosting. For most starter websites Shared Web Hosting should be sufficient, but larger websites should enjoy the added benefits of dedicated web hosting. Shared hosting is going to cost around 10.00 a month compared to dedicated hosting which can run around $75 or more a month. If you receive a large number of visitors a day, or have a fairly large database driven dynamic website, dedicated hosting is the only way to go. Most Search engine specialists will recommend a dedicated server over a shared server even for small websites due to the possibility that your site could theoretically be penalized for shady actions taken by other websites that share your sever and IP address. So if you choose to start off with shared hosting, shop around and make sure you will be sharing your sever with a reputable company that hosts reputable websites. Even though some companies offer webhosting for $3 or $4 dollars a month, it doesn’t mean it is a good buy. Spammers know where the cheap prices are, as they register them in bulk!

Now the fun part! The final task is the most challenging of all, the building of the website itself. You can outsource your web design with a website design company or you can opt to build it yourself. If you decide to build your own site, remember to practice common design recommendations like header tags and good text based navigation. Another important tip is to set a title, description and keyword tag in the head section of every page. A lot of people believe these tags are useless, but this is far from true. The title tag is the most important on page factor because it greatly affects ranking. The title tag is also important for enticing users to click on your listing as most search engines pull some of your listing information from the title tag. I try to keep my titles under 65 characters long. The description meta tag is also quite useful for ranking and can be quite a bit longer. Look at keeping your description under 250 characters, including spaces. I believe the keyword information is mainly used for categorization purposes. Just make a point to not repeat any words more than two or at the most three times or it may hurt you more than help.

Do you know that you can make a lot of money online with reseller web hosting? As a reseller, you don’t really own and run servers. Your primary job is to sell web hosting. You can charge whatever you want, and profit from handsome margins. Here is a step by step guide to help you get started.

Step 1: Choose a reliable hosting company.
Step 2: Sign up for reseller hosting.
Step 3: Setup your own website.
Step 4: Start selling web hosting.
Step 5: Sit back and count money!

Step 1: Choose a reliable hosting company.

This step is very important so pay close attention. As a reseller, the web hosting company is transparent to the customer. The customer deals through you, and if anything goes wrong, you must provide support. If you choose an unstable host, your customers will encounter lots of problems and blame you for them. So make sure you choose a reliable hosting company right from the very start. If the company is stable enough, it doesn’t take a lot to run a successful reseller business.

Step 2: Sign up for reseller hosting.

Once you have decided on the Company, sign up for a reseller account. A reseller account usually cost more than an ordinary hosting account. You will get more resources allocated to your account though. For example, you get more disk space and bandwidth that you can sell. A reseller account also gives you tools to manage the hosting that you manage to sell. You can bill customers, shut down accounts, etc.

Step 3: Setup your own website.

Once you have your own hosting account, the first thing you need to do is to setup your own website. You can setup a website easily by using free software such as Wordpress. If you do not have the technical know-how, you can always hire a freelance web designer to setup a professional looking site for you. Make sure you offer different ways for customers to contact you. Professional hosting companies always offer email support as well as instant chat support.

Step 4: Start selling web hosting.

With a website, you can start selling web hosting. If you have an existing customer base, you can easily make a killing by offering hosting. That way, you can provide additional value-added services and make your customers happier. For instance, you may be offering Internet marketing services and you know that your clients are looking for web hosting services as well. So you offer them cheap hosting, and offer to take care of their hosting needs for them as well. Remember, you only pay a monthly fee for the reseller hosting. You can charge your customers whatever you like and make the difference.

Step 5: Sit back and count money!

That’s it. It’s really that simple. Once you have customers, you can make money on a monthly basis. Every time a customer renews the account, you make money. There is no reason for them not to renew if you service your accounts properly.