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Articles Take Your Business Online the Easy Way It's happening everyday, everywhere. More and more small and medium-sized business owners are going online. The benefits are obvious: you can be open for business 24 hours a day, everywhere. If you've been considering a web site for your business, or if you merely wish to reinvent your existing online image - a web host has many ways to help you succeed regardless of your technical expertise and the other demands of your business. There are three options for building your on-line presence: Building your site on your ownWeb hosts commonly provide powerful, easy-to-use tools for building, managing and promoting your Web Site from anywhere in the world using only a computer, Internet connection and a browser. Interactive wizards guide you through the Site building process. Online help files and a customer support group provide additional guidance. Additional capabilities can be added with just a few clicks of a mouse, allowing you to enhance your site as your business grows. Larger hosting organizations such as Gateway also offer shared hosting plans allowing you to use the software of your choice to build your Site and then easily upload it to a secure environment. Learn to create your siteBuilding your own site may seem to be a daunting task - especially if you possess little in the way of design training. But you don't have to do it alone. Many hosting organizations provide a wealth of online training, design, and knowledge-base tutorials to help you get your site online quickly. For example, Gateway currently offers an eBoot Camp service - a series of hands-on workshops for building your own Web Site. Covering all the basics of online business processes such as accepting payments online, order processing, billing and product shipment as well as Site design and online marketing. Have your site built for youFor more complex, function-based web sites, it is sometimes better to have a professional designer build your site. To do this, most hosts only require some basic information about your company to create a custom web site, professionally designed just for you, including all the necessary end-user components:
Pointers for your new web siteCheck your competition. You can find out all sorts of things about what to do and what not to do by looking at their web sites. Also, try looking at sites of companies and organizations that you respect to find out how they handle things on the web. More isn't always better. Yeah, that dancing baby is cute - but can take a long time to download over that phone line at the airport. The best web sites are simple to use and get the user to where they want to go the fastest. Ask your customers. Do a little marketing study of your own by just talking to them or even sending out a little survey. Your customers may be able to give you some insight that you may not have thought of on your own. They may let you know what they don't like about the competition. Also, it doesn't hurt to make your customers feel like they played a part in determining how your site was built. Let 'em know you're out there. Just because you have a site doesn't mean anyone will visit, so submit your site to search engines. Next time you print stationary or business cards, make sure you add your URL. Give your customers a reason to visit like web promotions of forms they can download. Follow up. It may take a little experimentation before your site is one of
the most popular on the web, so be patient. Follow up with your customers after
it's been up for a little while to find out what they like and don't like. With
a little extra effort, your site can make your business better.
Outsourcing has gained popularity over the last few years as companies around the globe have turned to outside experts to deploy sound technology strategies. Once reserved for larger companies, outsourcing is now viewed as a cost-effective alternative to in-house solutions for companies of all sizes. Recent findings from market research firm The Yankee Group found that over 50 percent of small to medium-sized businesses (SMB) now employ some type of outsourcing to fulfill their information technology (IT) needs. As the trend toward outsourcing moves into the SMB market, small companies are learning to leverage technology to streamline business operations and automate their business processes to create greater efficiencies. One of the main reasons that SMBs are increasing their use of outsourcing services is to help lift the burden from already-taxed IT staff. According to The Yankee Group, the ratio of IT staff support to personal computers in small businesses is 1:25, while medium-sized businesses have a ratio of 1:33. In fact, some small businesses 29 percent of very small businesses have no full time IT staffs at all, according to Yankee. One of the fastest growing segments of SMB outsourcing is that of Web hosting. A growing percentage of companies are turning to outsourced Web hosting solutions to ensure that their Web site is secure, reliable and scalable. In fact, analyst firm Aberdeen Group predicts that the percentage of SMBs opting for Web hosting services will grow from 40 percent today to more than 70 percent in 2004 (Network Computing, September 3, 2001). The SMB market is an important market segment in today's economy and is expected to grow significantly over the next three to five years, said IDC Web hosting analyst Melanie Posey. The demand for more complex Web site functionality, ever-escalating costs and greater outsourcing benefits will further spur outsourced hosting among SMBs. Outsourcing: The bottom lineAs SMBs evaluate the shift to an outsourced Web hosting model, Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is often viewed as a major benefit of outsourcing. For SMBs, establishing their own hosting capabilities internally often is a larger investment than outsourcing. The TCO of self-managing a Web site is generally higher due to the costs of an in-house IT staff whose primary responsibility is to manage the Web site. In addition, TCO also factors in the equipment, software, and initial set up costs, as well as the periodic upgrading of equipment, 24/7 help desk services and around-the-clock monitoring and management. Given today's economic conditions, a reduction in capital expenditures is a key consideration for any business. By leveraging a Web hosting providers data center infrastructure, network and expertise, companies can expect a 25 to 80 percent cost savings over in-house solutions. Outsourcing enables a company to reduce its TCO by freeing assets, such as cash that is allocated to capital expenditures and the expense of specially-trained staff, which can account for anywhere from 22 percent to 47 percent of the total budget for the Web site. The benefits of using a hosting service provider (HSP) go beyond a reduced TCO. While an HSP enables small businesses to get connected to the Web quickly and efficiently, it also provides a strong assurance for a reliable e-commerce platform and provides end-to-end accountability for the performance of a site. Today, there are a variety of hosting options available to SMBs from a $20 simple hosting set-up, which provides a Web site and a domain name, to fully-managed hosting solutions that provide everything from security to monitoring and reporting. By outsourcing all Web hosting functions to a qualified provider, an SMB is truly able to take advantage of the efficiency and functionality of the Internet to enable and grow its business. SMBs can also pick and choose what value-added services they need to address Web site performance, business continuity and access challenges. HSPs offer a host of solutions to meet user requirements including monitoring and reporting of site traffic, disaster recovery planning, security threat monitoring, server backup and data storage and retrieval capabilities. In addition, providers usually offer Service Level Agreement guarantees to ensure full-time availability and back-up for the site. However, if an SMB self-manages its site, there is no recourse if the site goes down, nor any guarantee that it will work. This reliability becomes even more crucial when the Web site is an e-commerce site responsible for driving sales and communicating with potential customers. Web hosting: The foundation of e-businessAs a sales tool, SMBs are discovering what the Web can do for them, giving them access to new regional, national and global markets. With a secure, reliable Web site to market and sell their products or services, or to make their business operations more efficient and streamlined, SMEs can experience the same benefits as their larger competitors. One example of a small business using the Internet to grow its business is Boston-based LifeClips, Inc., www.lifeclips.com. The company, which converts videotapes to DVDs as a way for consumers to preserve their home video memories, chose the Web to create a new way to reach customers and prospects. In order to take its business online, and expand its customer base, LifeClips required a Web site that would be highly available, anytime of the day or night. However, managing the data center infrastructure, operating system and applications was far more complex than the company could handle with a small staff of 35. LifeClips turned to a Web hosting provider that could fully manage and maintain its Web site operations, allowing LifeClips to focus on their core business. Because a significant part of LifeClips' business comes from online sales and its customer base was more than doubling every month, the company found that an outsourced Web hosting solution provided the essential Internet infrastructure for its online success. The future of small business Web hostingAs small businesses begin to automate their internal processes and develop
online e-commerce capabilities, their Web sites need to deliver top-notch
performance. With the increasing importance of small business Web sites and
online-enabled functions, it's critical that the Web operations of SMBs be
properly managed and supported to ensure their success. Outsourcing Web hosting
services can provide that kind of support while helping businesses to decrease
costs and increase productivity and their bottom line.
You probably know someone who has gone through this scenario, or more than likely you have been there yourself. You discover the Internet, and learn how easy it is to set up a website. You set up a personal one for yourself, and then another one for your business, buying different domain names. Impressed, your family and friends ask you to help them set up their own websites, but they want you to handle the messy details (like arranging who will host the site). Before you know it, you have a whole collection of domain names spread across several web hosting companies, each of them charging a monthly fee. You would like to find a way to cut those expenses. Or maybe you are a graphic designer, and you create websites for your clients. You even maintain some of them. But you want to offer your clients something that will set you apart from all the rest of the HTML jockeys out there. If it could be a service for which you can charge and add to your bottom line, so much the better. Perhaps you own a business that, for whatever reason, needs more than one domain name. Or, instead of owning the business, you’re the webmaster of the company, and need to handle those domain names. Like the person who has discovered the Internet and found himself more involved with it than he might have originally intended, you would like to cut your expenses –- not to mention the hassle of dealing with more than one web hosting company. Whether you are an owner of multiple domain names for business purposes, an Internet hobbyist whose domain name collection is now a little out of hand, or the owner of a business with a natural tie-in to the Internet, you might find that becoming a reseller of web hosting services solves many of your problems. You don’t need to be in the business of web hosting to be a web hosting reseller. Many web hosting companies offer reseller accounts for a price that suits the budget of a serious hobbyist, while providing professional service. Why You Should Consider Becoming a Reseller: For example, Hosting Revolution offers a reseller account for $35. For that price, it offers up to 100 domain names, to each of which you can allocate up to 20 GB of monthly transfer and up to 2.5 GB of storage space. If you own 10 domain names, you may be paying $5 to $10 per name per month to your web host(s), which really adds up. Buy a reseller account, and you can save money. Better, you will have room to expand or even sell hosting space, thus turning a profit. Because you have purchased so much space, you can be flexible with how you dole it out. You can allocate more space to websites that need it, and less to those that don’t. This can be particularly useful if you have a website that suddenly generates a lot of interest or gains a lot of content –- say, for example, on a seasonal basis. If you offer Internet-related services, providing web hosting under your own company name can be a great and profitable add-on service. This move is a natural for website designers, but theirs is by no means the only kind of business that can benefit. If you program or sell software related to building websites, your customers are clearly interested in creating websites, which can imply an interest in purchasing web hosting services. You can probably think of many other kinds of businesses that could logically offer this service. Finally, if you are currently hosting websites on your own equipment, becoming a reseller of web hosting services takes the problems associated with that out of the picture. You no longer need to worry about things like the cost of server maintenance. Likewise, technical support falls under the purview of your web hosting provider. Assuming you have chosen a reliable web hosting provider, this can save you a lot of money, time, and frustration, letting you focus on the parts of your business or hobby that you enjoy the most. Choosing Your Web Host: Pick a web host with a reputation for reliability. There are many websites with forums that cater to the web hosting community. You can hunt down online reviews from past and current clients of web hosts you are thinking about doing business with fairly easily. While reliability in terms of uptime is an important consideration, it isn’t the only one. Find out how quickly your chosen web host responds to support requests –- especially the kind of time-sensitive ones that make your clients yell. Also, find out how long the web host has been in business; remember that many new businesses fail within their first year, and businesses in the field of web hosting are no exception to this rule. Consider your own future while shopping for a web host. Your needs as a reseller could easily change and grow in the future. Does the web host offer reseller plans that let you upgrade when your needs increase? Are they willing to customize their plans? How much do they charge for their plans, and what is included in the price? One other thing worth considering: does the web host provide the option for private nameservers? Usually they do, for a small additional fee. Private nameservers are also called private label, personalized nameservers, or virtual nameservers. They help you brand your business, and simplify things for your clients. If your reseller account is with AlwaysUp Hosting and your company name is EverDependable Services, your clients will enter ns1.everdependable.com and ns2.everdependable.com for the nameservers for their domains. Nuts and Bolts : You will need to choose the platform you want to use (Linux vs. Microsoft), which will determine what software you can run. You will also need to decide what control panel your clients will use for their websites. These range from pretty basic to full of features. Obviously, as a reseller you will also have a control panel of your own, to set up and control hosting accounts. After you have chosen your web host, you need to set up your hosting plans and prices. Remember that both bandwidth and disk space are important factors. Divide your bandwidth by your disk space so that you know what ratio of bandwidth to disk space you can offer. Take into consideration what will happen to that ratio if and when you decide to upgrade. Base the packages you offer on the bandwidth/disk space ratio. As to pricing, consider your competitors, but also weigh in any special (additional) services you will provide. If you’re going to do this seriously, you need to build a website for your reseller web hosting business. You can easily find books and articles devoted to this topic. Approach this with the eyes of a potential customer, and make sure you include everything that they would want to know about your company and its services. It may not need to be fancy, but it does need to be well organized and easily accessible, especially the important stuff (i.e. contact information, how to order, pricing packages, etc.). You’re not done yet. If you’re going to accept online payments for hosting accounts, your site needs to be ready for it. That means you need to set up an SSL certificate, a merchant account, and a payment gateway. Otherwise, you will not be able to accept secure payments. Likewise, you will probably want to set up an automated billing system. This will save you a ton of work. Billing and payment processing systems often charge a monthly or yearly fee for a license; a few offer prices for lifetime licenses. Make certain that it is compatible with server program, and find out whether support is included in the fee (and how much). You will also want to set up a helpdesk. This lets clients communicate with you when they need support, and helps you to respond to those requests. As you have no doubt already figured out, being a reseller doesn’t take you off the hook for customer support – quite the opposite, in fact. No, you’re still not done. When your clients register with you, they deserve an email that welcomes them to your business; it also helps to make sure they know what they’re getting, in writing. This email should include a confirmation of the package details; a username and temporary password; the nameserver names; a link to the control panel; and links to your FAQ and helpdesk. Whew, that’s a lot, and we haven’t even talked about marketing your business
yet! Still, even for someone doing it as just a hobby, becoming a reseller of
web hosting services can be a big decision. I hope I’ve given you some idea of
what is involved. |
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