There’s no denying that the web hosting industry is very competitive, so much in fact that newer web hosts can struggle to enter the game. And reselling businesses are struggling to find a new web hosting clients.
The reasons vary depending on the reseller, but most stem from a lack of price flexibility and marketing potential. However, there are also many strengths that keep reselling web hosting a popular choice.
Today, I will share 11 ways you can gain web hosting clients as a reseller.
What Is A Webhosting Reseller?
In the simplest terms, a web hosting reseller is when a larger web hosting company rents hard drive space and bandwidth out to a smaller company (the reseller). That company takes the space and rents it out to multiple users to turn a profit.
It’s the best way to begin your own web hosting business because it minimizes the overhead of starting a business.
In fact, a lot of freelance developers will use reselling web hosting as a way to sweeten what they offer to clients. For instance, it’s often easier and cheaper to pay for web hosting while also having a professional developer create some amazing sites for you.
On top of this, the actual costs of renting that space are quite low. These fixed costs make it easy to turn a profit, but there is one small problem, you actually need to find web hosting clients. And for most, that is the hardest part of starting a reseller business.
11 Ways to Get More Web Hosting Clients As A Reseller
1. Create A Stylish Reseller Website
This is probably the most basic tip you can get, but you need to make a website for your business that is stylish. This is how customers will contact you, and sign up for your services, but a lot of beginners get this wrong.
Take a step back for a minute and ask yourself, what kind of website am I running? A web hosting business.
You are automatically being held to a higher standard in terms of web design. Your customers are literally there because they want to make a website, thus, you need to prove your service is going to be good enough for that.
Visitors will judge your website and interfaces, and if they don’t like what they see, they may not want to do business.
2. Target A Niche
The web hosting industry is competitive. And as a reseller, it can be very challenging to compete with larger web hosting companies in terms of marketing. In fact, I would go as far as to say it is impossible to match them.
Thus, you need to lean into a niche to successfully resell web hosting services.
For example, you might want to work locally in your area. Small businesses need a website and many often prefer to know who they are dealing with. This also allows you to provide in-person support if you stay in your local area.
And this by itself could be a huge selling point because no major web hosting is actually going to visit a customer in person.
3. Offer Good Support
Speaking of support, there’s no denying that good support goes a long way. And this is definitely one way that a reseller can go above and beyond to make their service valuable to customers.
Let’s face it, resellers do not have a ton of customers. This means the interactions with your customers matter more than ever.
Helping customers get started and set up their website can make a world of difference. It can also be the act that earns you a customer for life. The problem is that resellers don’t have a support team standing by, thus, you need to make sure you make time for customers.
Set up email support and create a phone support window or appointments to help resolve problems. Good service gets people talking.
4. Optimize Your SEO
No website can escape the grip of SEO. It can make or break an online business and reselling is no exception. First, you need to determine which SEO is more important to you, general SEO or local.
While they have similarities, they definitely have their differences.
For those unaware, local SEO is how well you rank in your local area. This is particularly important if you plan on selling yourself as the local web host that small businesses can rely on. And in most cases, this is the only area you can beat a regular hosting company.
Understanding SEO and applying it to your business is critical to reaching more customers.
5. Write A Blog
Speaking of improving your SEO, you should start your own blog. Not only does this have SEO advantages, but it also helps make you look like an expert on the topic. And that’s very important when you are trying to get new customers.
Customers want to make sure they are paying for quality service, therefore, showing off your knowledge is a great start.
As a reseller, a blog can also double as a support hub. Creating blogs around frequently asked questions is a great way to help customers and build up your resource pool. This type of content is also sharable on social media platforms.
However, keep in mind that poorly written content can backfire. Thus, you need to make sure it is worth reading.
6. Create A Social Media Presence
Can you think of a business that doesn’t have a Facebook page? Probably not, and there’s a good reason, social media is hands down one of the best ways to reach web hosting clients for your reselling or any other kind of business.
Just remember Facebook isn’t the only option. Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and many others present unique marketing opportunities.
The key here is to make sure you don’t spread yourself too thin. No one is going to follow a Twitter account that has one Tweet. You need to be active on the platforms you use and expand to more once you are comfortable.
Rapidly building your presence on multiple platforms at once without actively using them is a surefire way to fail.
7. Create A Referral System
Don’t ever underestimate the power of a referral system. Just about every big-name offers one, and that’s because it’s good business. It allows you to use your existing customer base as agents to promote your business.
In return, those customers can get some money back on their web hosting.
The good news is that it doesn’t take much. Just offering $5 off their next bill will be enough to get some customers to try and get their friends to switch over so they can collect a small reward.
It really is highly effective.
While you may feel this could cut into your profits, remember you are getting a new customer in the process, so you are still making money. Not to mention that it’s still cheaper than marketing with ads on platforms like Google.
8. Avoid Overselling
It’s no secret that customers do not use all of the resources they pay for. Many resellers try to take advantage of this and sell more resources than they actually have. The idea is that the unused resources from one customer will cover for others.
While this can work and increase profits, it often ends in disaster.
All it takes is for a couple of customers to start using the resources they paid for before everything catches on fire. This will provide a bad experience to customers, and ultimately make them look for a different hosting option.
Overselling has its advantages, but for inexperienced hosts, it’s best to avoid it.
9. Focus on WordPress
Have you ever noticed that just about every major web hosting company advertises WordPress hosting front and center? That’s because it is hands down the most popular CMS in the industry.
In fact, you can go even further by saying the current web hosting environment is built around WordPress.
Thus, it would probably be a good idea to put a focus on WordPress for your reseller hosting business. Targeting the largest audience is typically a good way to find new web hosting clients.
Yet, there’s no denying that you risk just being another WordPress hosting company.
10. Ask Customers To Leaver Reviews or Testimonies
If you’re proud of the services you provide, you shouldn’t be afraid to ask customers to leave reviews or testimonials. In today’s world, reviews from customers are worth a hundred ads on Facebook.
All right, maybe that’s not accurate, but you get my point. User reviews can help spread the word when you provide a high-quality service.
With that said, even if you don’t ask, customers may leave those reviews on other sites, and they may not be great. Thus, reviews are a double-edged sword.
That said, even when they are bad, they still provide a benefit to the business. They provide you with areas you can improve the service you offer.
11. Pick A Quality Web Host
As a reseller, the quality of the services you provide is directly tied to the web hosting company you purchase those resources from. Essentially, you can only be as good as the source of the servers.
Not only does the quality matter, but the reseller plans available will directly dictate how profitable your business is. If the charges are too low, well, you can’t make much profit. If you try to charge too much for your services, customers will look elsewhere.
Thus, you need to make sure you pick a quality web hosting company.
Get More Web Hosting Clients Today
You can’t have a business if you don’t have any clients. And to be perfectly honest, it can be pretty scary to start a reseller business and have no customers. It’s an uphill battle, but there’s a lot of potential.
It really comes down to how well you can reach customers, and how well you can sell your services to them.
How do you plan to reach new customers? Why did you start a reseller business?
Thanks for sharing that great advice. I think it also helps to provide some added value, and this is in touch with “target a niche”. For example, if you are targeting local businesses you could also help them with SEO, design, business cards or something else. Later when your web hosting business grows, you can focus your efforts only on web hosting.
I think for most new web hosting resellers, they start by building entire websites, and then during that process, they start reselling web hosting.
That’s the great thing about building up a reseller business, you have all kinds of opportunities to upsell and expand. 🙂