Starting your own reseller hosting company may seem like a huge undertaking. If you still choose to begin as a reseller, you may find it a lot easier to get your business off the ground.
Purchasing a reseller package with a pre-existing company like GoDaddy gives you access to all the infrastructure and resources you need. So you can focus on essential details like choosing your hosting company name, designing your website, and marketing your services. Below are a few simple steps to get your reseller hosting business started.
Set Business Goals for Your Reseller Hosting Company
Before you do anything, it’s important to determine your goals for your new business. Do you want this to become your full-time job, or is this just a way for you to earn some passive income?
Do you want to eventually grow your reseller business into its own independent company, or are you happy to remain a reseller for the long-term?
Choose Your Target Audience
Too many people think that they’re going to market their services to “anyone.” The trouble with this thinking is that “anyone” is way more likely to choose a big-name host (including the one you’re reselling with) than they are to choose you.
In order to build a solid customer base, you have to determine what your company offers that other companies don’t. Ask yourself, what kinds of people can benefit most from your unique services.
Who are your customers going to be? Are they single businesspeople, homeowners, environmentally-conscious millennials? Is there something about your services that make them particularly good for people in big cities, digital nomads, or first-time website owners?
Deciding who your target audience is. It may sound like it’s narrowing down your potential customer base, but the opposite is true. Marketing to a niche allows you to focus your advertising in a smart way. It also allows appealing to people who may be dissatisfied with other web hosting services out there.
Know the Competition
Take a look at other small reseller brands out there, and determine what you have to offer that they don’t. How can you convince potential customers to choose your services instead of someone else’s?
What are you promising your customers that your competitors aren’t? The competition can reveal potential customer niches. For instance, the ones that aren’t being met, services that aren’t consistently being offered, or features that aren’t typically available.
This can help you to tailor your own offerings to fill those gaps and give you an edge over the other companies on the market.
Name Your Business
Choosing a name for your hosting business is actually an incredibly important step. One of the best parts of reselling is that you are allowed to design your brand from scratch.
For example, if you purchase a reselling package with a company like GoDaddy, you don’t have to use GoDaddy’s logo or branding. You can create your own business name, logo, and branding to feature on your hosting site.
When choosing a name for your business, you’re walking a bit of a marketing tightrope. You want to choose a name that’s unique and memorable, but not so strange that it’s difficult to spell or share with others.
You want your name to appeal to your target audience, but you want it to be distinct from the names of your competitors.
Choose Your Domain Name and Build Your Website
As the name of your business, your domain name is also incredibly important to the success of your reseller company. A good domain name will feature relevant keywords that will cause your site to appear in relevant Google searches.
It will also be easy for potential customers to remember. They should easily find your site again if they choose to purchase one of your packages or want to share your business with interested friends.
Once you’ve set your domain name, it’s time to build your website. Again, the joy of reseller hosting is that the company you’re reselling from doesn’t have to appear anywhere on your website.
You have the freedom to build a hosting website devoted entirely to your business. If in the future, you are making enough money to end your reseller package and purchase your own servers, you won’t have to change your website at all!
Your website design and layout should appeal to your target audience, be easy to read, and give customers a clear idea of what kinds of services you offer.
Petr is a serial tech entrepreneur and the CEO of Apro Software, a machine learning company. Whenever he’s not blogging about technology for itechgyan.com or softwarebattle.com, Petr enjoys playing sports and going to the movies. He’s also deeply interested in mediation, Buddhism and biohacking.