• Howdy! Welcome to our community of more than 130.000 members devoted to web hosting. This is a great place to get special offers from web hosts and post your own requests or ads. To start posting sign up here. Cheers! /Peo, FreeWebSpace.net
managed wordpress hosting

single best tip you wana share in hosting

W

webboy

New Member
share single best tip you know in hosting biz.

I would say
know what people are looking for and provide accordingly
 
The best tip would be to have patience and a lot of it. Customers don't just appear over night when starting out.
 
Be understanding -

What I mean by this is understand what your customers are trying to accomplish and help them reach whatever it is. If they are trying to create a business and you offer to help them to easily setup a shopping cart, then you've helped them in a particular way.

Secondly, stay ahead of the crowd, don't just be a "me-too" kinda web host. Stand out from the crowd by doing your own thing, after all, being unique helps to establish your online presence, especially when you're the only one offering a certain product or feature.
 
The tip for what?
Are you planing to start web hosting business? If yes you need to decide which niche to chose and who your competitors and what will be your distinctive feature etc.
 
Support, support, support. A hoster might not be the fastest but if it offers support to any issue, customers are very happy = $.
 
Have some capital & horsepower.
The original post said "host biz" not community or hobby right?
So get a grip and be able to take a loss for 2 years. Actually stick around long enough for clients to notice you in the cacophany. My study over on the other thread was born out of 1-man shops croaking at the notorious 5 month mark. What were the expenses, $1000?

This little eddy current of activity needs some of the 1-man specials to pool resources so that the resulting 3-man entity has some emergency resources if their back end reseller goes down.
 
There are different ideas or tips that different providers can give and some will contradict each other.
I read above that 24-hour support is needed or something. That's BS. I know large hosting companies who provide support during office hours only - Mon-Fri, 9am to 6pm or whatever. They do, however, provide a 24-hour emergency line. That's all that is needed.

My best tip: Provide what you would look for in a service yourself. Only then will you be satisfied that you are providing quality services.
 
Dan said:
There are different ideas or tips that different providers can give and some will contradict each other.
I read above that 24-hour support is needed or something. That's BS. I know large hosting companies who provide support during office hours only - Mon-Fri, 9am to 6pm or whatever. They do, however, provide a 24-hour emergency line. That's all that is needed.

My best tip: Provide what you would look for in a service yourself. Only then will you be satisfied that you are providing quality services.
Click to expand...

That's a complicated quote. In huge operations where management decides that everyone goes home at 6PM on Friday, it's frustrating because at least at our work, IT does installs after our own crew goes home to avoid hosing the business for 2 hours.

From my interactions with the smaller providers here, having a chance at getting some email replies on weekends is important.
 
I do agree that support is vital. God knows I won't pay a provider for hosting unless they have some form of 24 hour service where I can at least submit a support ticket and use a phone if there is an urgent need to do so at 4am.
However, what people are failing to realise these days mate, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!! If you want 24/7 support and someone to answer an email, phone or support ticket at 4am, then you have to be able to sacrifice a few dollars extra to cover that service. Too many hosting providers offer 24/7 support for a $1.99 hosting package. How many of them will answer a support ticket at 4am local time? NONE!!!
Catch my drift?
 
Dan said:
I do agree that support is vital. God knows I won't pay a provider for hosting unless they have some form of 24 hour service where I can at least submit a support ticket and use a phone if there is an urgent need to do so at 4am.
However, what people are failing to realise these days mate, YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!!! If you want 24/7 support and someone to answer an email, phone or support ticket at 4am, then you have to be able to sacrifice a few dollars extra to cover that service. Too many hosting providers offer 24/7 support for a $1.99 hosting package. How many of them will answer a support ticket at 4am local time? NONE!!!
Catch my drift?
Click to expand...

I've answered a support ticket at 3-4AM local time as a free host... if I can provide that, paid hosts should be able to as well.
 
Darksoul said:
I've answered a support ticket at 3-4AM local time as a free host... if I can provide that, paid hosts should be able to as well.
Click to expand...

So your saying you don't have a life? As I have a real job during the day, and its not providing free hosting. I do IT services at a good pay, and yet still find the bit of time to manage free clients. I also work one weekend a month, about 12-14 hours on that Saturday & Sunday doing Drill at the local base. So, I have a hectic schedule.

Now, I don't mean to seem rude. I apologize if I am pushing you a bit. But, normal free hosts, including me, don't try to go all the way out there just to get every customer and keep them satisfied. I know I just offer free hosting, I don't HAVE to do everything possible to keep or gain members.
 
Darksoul said:
I've answered a support ticket at 3-4AM local time as a free host... if I can provide that, paid hosts should be able to as well.
Click to expand...

I've done this as well, and I have a day job to keep after as well. It's called doing what you have to if you want to succeed.

Not only did I answer a support email at 3AM local time, but I ended up spending an hour helping the customer that sent it reconfigure his site layout and debug his new code all while still making it to work on time at 8AM.

I will admit that if a customer sent a ticket while I was at my day job, I would be unable to answer it until lunch break or I finished my shift due to a lack of available time to give a good response, but I still do the best I can to answer them quickly and efficiently.

This business seems to take quite a while to get anywhere, but when things do start going they'll progress quickly.
 
Last edited:
Ok, here's my sales tip.

Make effective use of email.

The first thing we should try to achieve with a new visitor to our site is to invite them on to a mailing list.

Once they are on the list, we have a chance to build trust over time.

Very few hosts take this seriously, or have any kind of optin list. This is an opportunity to get a competitive edge.

Good luck!
 
My biggest tip is be ready to advertise. Having top notch support is great, but you need the clients to support so be ready to expand your reach beyond forums. Shell out a few bucks for quality advertising.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top