What Can You Do When Your Web Design/Dev Customers Need Web Hosting?
You’ve probably been asked by a customer about web hosting or at least considered selling hosting to your customers. But what are your options when you consider whether or not to offer the service?
1. Become a Hosting Reseller
Becoming a hosting reseller allows you to set up a one-stop shop for your customers, so they only have to worry about dealing with your business, the folks they already decided to trust with creating their site! Another added benefit is a new revenue stream for your business. You can either upsell hosting as an additional service, or just bundle the hosting product into an existing website maintenance or management fee. The benefits here are pretty clear, admittedly, but here are a few other things to consider before taking the leap.
Time Constraints
You know that thing we all have way too much of, time? (Said no one ever). This is probably one of the biggest things to think about when deciding whether or not to add web hosting to your product line. The fact is, while it will vary from provider to provider, creating a hosting product will take some setup time. Setting up your plan with the provider, figuring out how to structure your pricing (see Expertise section, below), adding the product details to your own website, etc. will all take time, but these will certainly pay off in the end.
The larger consideration is how much time will be required to maintain this service, or will you end up spending so much time dealing with hosting issues that you don’t get to focus on your core services? If you choose the right host, and manage the amount of traffic/content you’re allowing on your plan, this really shouldn’t be a huge issue, as service issues will usually be fairly minimal.
Additional customer support will fall to you
Exactly as it sounds, offering a whole new product line will lead to added customer support requirements around the web hosting offering. If it’s a high quality host you’re buying from, most of the server end issues will be handled for you, but there is still a reasonable degree of site management to be handled within the reseller cPanel account (more information below), and potentially a new set of billing issues.
Expertise
A big question you might be asking yourself is, “Do I even have the technical ability to do this?” Bringing it back to the host you decide to go with — if you choose a host with a well established, user-friendly reseller setup, it shouldn’t take more than a couple hours to learn enough to be able to handle the basics on your own. Look for reseller hosting that includes a control panel, like cPanel, that will do a lot of the heavy lifting for you, plus there a plenty of tutorials floating around the web for cPanel, which are super helpful. In addition to offering cPanel, most providers (Like us at SkyToaster, #ShamelessPlug) will be willing to help you along the way if you get stuck. For more information on choosing the right hosting provider, check out our recommended 11 Questions to Ask YourHost Before Signing Up!
2. Join a web host’s affiliate program
Alright, you’ve given it some thought and run the numbers and maybe even surveyed a few of your customers for feedback, but you just don’t think you have the time to handle the added product set, or you just don’t want to draw focus away from your web design or web development business. I get it! What can you do instead? If you have a web host you trust already, there’s a good chance they have an affiliate or referral program that offers some type of reward for sending a customer their way. This is a good way to add some revenue to your business while also ensuring your customers are with a host you trust to treat them with the care they deserve.
3. Say, “Sorry. I can’t help you.”
My least favorite option, but one some folks still choose, telling your customers that this just isn’t your area of expertise may be the path you choose to follow. If you don’t have much experience with a web host or don’t have one you’re crazy about, though, this could make sense, and your customers may even respect you for it. At the same time, if you’re a web developer or web designer, there’s probably a pretty good chance you have at least one web host you know and trust — if not, we’d love to win you over!
Conclusion
To wrap things up, pay attention to how much time adding hosting to your business might take, and compare that to your added potential for hosting revenue (not to mention increased client retention from added service), then determine if it’s worth it to you and your customers. If it’s not, find that same host and start referring your customers to the folks you trust. If you still don’t want to touch the industry, keep on keepin’ on my friends! However, if you want to jump into the game of offering web hosting, find a solid, reliable web host, get set up with a reseller hosting package that works for you, learn your way around cPanel, and let the games begin!
