The Ultimate Guide:
Reseller Hosting!

You may already have a faint idea of what exactly does reseller hosting mean. In simple words, as a reseller host, you can provide hosting services to your customers without manufacturing the services.

However, it is not as simple as it sounds. Let me tell you why.

If you use the internet regularly, try and think of the number of websites you come across everyday. Endless, right?

The world wide web is filled with websites from every possible niche, all of which require hosting to stay active on the internet.

So, you can easily imagine how crowded the hosting market is!

Because let’s face it, we are all here for one purpose only- To make as much money as possible!

Therefore, if you’re serious about starting your own reseller web hosting business, it is very important that you get everything in place, and this reseller hosting guide is exactly what you need.

We have listed down a few links which will help you in setting up a Successful Reseller Hosting Business.

This is probably the most important, yet under-rated question.

Starting a web hosting business is not everybody’s cup of tea. Which is why, it is advisable to research and read everything there is about reseller hosting before plunging into it headstrong.

So, why is Reseller hosting important? And why is it so popular?

As it’s evident from Chapter 1, Reseller hosting is a form of web hosting made by one and sold by another. Reseller hosting is important for and popular among businesses who want to offer an entire package of services to their clients.

It’s not feasible for both the agency and the client to get work done from 10 different places. Thus, it is advisable to sell reseller hosting.
Reseller hosting is most essential for businesses and agencies who are into making websites. Instead of asking their clients to buy hosting from elsewhere, these agencies can resell hosting as a complete web development package.

Another important question you should ponder on is;

Where to start?

The below resources have covered it all, but still here’s a little heads up for you-

Before starting a reseller hosting business you will have to consider every step you need to take. For instance, you will need a hosting company to resell the hosting for, you will need a domain name, a website, get your legal documents in place and much more.

Thus, your first step should be to build a business plan, which will help you to figure out every step you need to take before launching your business. The business plan will also help you draw the entire path you need to take for successfully running your reseller hosting business.

After the business plan, the second most important thing you will need to get in place is buying hosting for your own website. You can make use of free services like Trello.com, for your business planning.

So, choose a web hosting plan for your own website –

Before trying to sell hosting to your clients you will first have to figure out a plan for your own website. The below 7 pointer checklist is made to help you select a web host for your own website.

Follow this checklist to choose a web host for your own website-

• Understand and calculate what your hosting needs are.
• What is the server uptime report of the hosting company you are planning to buy the hosting from.
• What are the renewal prices?
• Is there a refund policy? If yes, is it suitable to your line of business?
• Understand the limitations of your hosting account to avoid account suspension.
• How often will the website back up be taken?
• Choosing the same hosting company as the one you would like to resell for.
• Choose WordPress tuned services, if you and your clients have WordPress websites.

Choosing a reseller hosting company is just like choosing a web hosting company for yourself. The only difference here is you will need to choose the web hosting plans that will benefit you in the long run.

Understanding what every company offers in their reseller hosting plans is also very essential before zeroing down on a company.

You need to consider the below pointers to select the best reseller hosting company:

• Support: Before signing up with any hosting company, make sure that the hosting company provides you with 24/7/365
  days support.
• Uptime: Take into consideration the uptime report of that web hosting company. You also need to make sure of what
  happens if their service is down, and what is the procedure you have to follow if it’s down for a while.
• Money Back Policy: Money back guarantee is essential for every reseller hosting business. You need an assurance that you
  will get your money back if you do not like the service.
• Scalability: One cannot simply understand how many clients will they have 2 years down the line. Thus, it’s best to book a
  web host who provides you with scalability option.
• Value for money: Considering what you are getting out of the entire deal is something you shouldn’t take lightly. While
  selecting a host you need to figure out what they offer, and also what comes for free.
• Minimum Contract period: What is the minimum contract period for your reseller hosting account? And what is the renewal
  process? You need to ask these questions in order to avoid getting an unwanted shock later on.
• Can you turn a profit?: Sure there are a lot of people who are earning well in the reseller hosting business. But, have you
  considered the fact that maybe they joined the reseller hosting game when there were very few competitors? There is a lot of
  competition in the reseller hosting business today. Thus, to make a mark in the reseller hosting business you will have to
  market your website and compete against the well established brands.
• Reseller risks: Starting a reseller hosting business brings in a lot of responsibilities, some of which are –
  • a. Handling your customer’s problems personally.
  • b. You have to understand that whichever reseller hosting you choose, you will be completely dependent on its
    stability and success.
  • c. Staying organized is of utmost importance in administration, accounts and backups.
• Server location: Want to host your website closer to the clients? It’s a great idea but, will limit your client base. Instead, a
  better idea is to host from multiple locations around the world. This way you get to serve clients from multiple locations
  effectively.

Thus, keep the above pointers in mind while selecting a reseller hosting company.

You will be done with 50% of your work once you’ve decided on a web hosting company to resell for. For instance, you want to resell for Bigrock, then the next step should be to decide whether you want to resell Linux hosting or Windows hosting.

After you decide this, you need to select a plan according to your requirement. Bigrock.in offers you 4 plans under both the hosting and you can zero down on the one that is most suitable for your client base.

Type of hosting you would like to sell:

Like I said before, there are two types of hosting you can sell. One is Linux hosting and the other is Windows hosting.

Linux Hosting: Linux reseller hosting is powered by WHM (Web Host Manager). Under Linux reseller hosting, Bigrock offers Free WHMCS billing system, unlimited cPanel accounts and MySQL databases, 99.9% uptime, 30-day money back guarantee, and dedicated 24/7 technical support. It is powered by cPanel, CloudLinux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Ruby on Rails and more.

Bigrock has further divided Linux reseller hosting to India Hosting and US hosting and both these hosting come with 4 plans.

Linux Reseller India HostingPlans:

• Essential: Starts at INR. 999/mo, comes with 40GB space, 700GB transfer, unlimited websites.
• Economy: Starts at INR. 1249/mo, comes with 50GB space, 900GB transfer, Unlimited websites, Free WHMCS.
• Deluxe: Starts at INR. 1749/mo, comes with 100GB space, 1200GB transfer, Unlimited websites, Free WHMCS.
• Premium: Starts at INR. 2869/mo, comes with 200GB space, 1400GB transfer, Unlimited websites, and Free WHMCS.

Linux Reseller US Hosting Plans:

• Essential: Starts at INR. 999/mo, comes with 40GB space, 700GB transfer, unlimited websites.
• Economy: Starts at INR. 1249/mo, comes with 50GB space, 900GB transfer, unlimited websites, Free WHMCS.
• Deluxe: Starts at INR. 1749/mo, comes with 100GB space, 1200GB transfer, unlimited websites, Free WHMCS.
• Premium: Starts at 2869/mo, comes with 200GB space, 1400GB transfer, unlimited websites, Free WHMCS.

Windows Hosting: Windows reseller hosting is supported by Plesk. Under Windows reseller hosting, Bigrock offers disk space, bandwidth, and email addresses, 99.9% uptime, powered by Windows 2008, Plesk, ASP.NET, MySQL, PHP, IIS and more. They also have 30-day money back guarantee.

Just like Linux hosting, Windows reseller hosting is divided into India hosting and US hosting.

Windows Reseller US Hosting Plans:

• Essential: Starts at INR. 1029/mo, comes with 10GB space, 200GB transfer, and unlimited websites.
• Economy: Starts at INR. 1199/mo, comes with 25GB space, 500GB transfer, unlimited websites, Free WHMCS.
• Deluxe: Starts at INR. 1529/mo, comes with 50GB space, 1000GB transfer, unlimited websites, and Free WHMCS.
• Premium: Starts at 2179/mo, comes with 100GB space, 2000GB transfer, unlimited websites, Free WHMCS.

Windows Reseller India Hosting Plans:

• Essential: Starts at INR. 1289/mo, comes with 20GB space, 100GB transfer, unlimited websites.
• Economy: Starts at INR. 1499/mo, comes with 50GB space, 200GB transfer, unlimited websites, Free WHMCS.
• Deluxe: Starts at INR. 1909/mo, comes with 100GB space, 300GB transfer, unlimited websites, Free WHMCS.
• Premium: Starts at 2719/mo, comes with 200GB space, 500GB transfer, unlimited websites, Free WHMCS.

Features You Need To Look For In Your Reseller Hosting Plan:

• cPanel Account: To kickstart your reseller hosting business, cPanel is one the best options to offers your customers.
• WHM for Linux Hosting: To smoothly operate Linux reseller hosting you will need Web Hosting Manager (WHM). WHM is a program that allows administrative access to manage your customer’s accounts.
• Plesk for Windows: Plesk is another effective, flexible and secure web panel for professional hosting reseller for Windows.
• WHMCS: WebHost Manager Complete Solution is the leading web hosting automation platform. WHMCS lets you control signups, provisioning, billing and lets you firmly support your business.
• Softaculous: The Softaculous feature provides a wider array of scripts, that can be installed, upgraded and removed from your website with just a few clicks.
• Custom Name servers: A name server is a specialized server on the Internet, which handles queries and questions from your computer, about the domain name’s various services. A custom name server allows you to run your own name server to respond to DNS request for your domains.
• Diskspace: Disk space is the amount of data you can store on the web server. The hosting company will provide you with a certain GB of disk space, it’s your job to calculate beforehand and check if the disk space will be sufficient.

Investment is the core to start any business. Reseller hosting business too needs some sort of investment to get started. There will be things you will need before starting your reseller hosting business to effectively run it on the internet.

So, here are things you will need to invest in before starting your reseller hosting business.

• Domain Name: Domain name is very essential in order to start any business on the internet. Similarly, for reseller hosting business, you will first need to get your domain name in place. To get a domain name, you will have to come up with a unique name, such as ‘myresellerhosting.com’ and check if that domain name is available on the web. You can then book the domain depending on your requirement and capacity to spend.
• Web hosting Website: To run an effective web hosting business, you will obviously need a website. WordPress is one of the most competent CMS platforms you can use for your website. You can directly download WordPress from your Bigrock hosting account. A website is incomplete without a theme, and that’s when Avada comes in the picture. Avada is one of the top selling themes on WordPress and has all the features you would look for in a theme. Buying a theme for your website is unavoidable. Avada for a reseller hosting business is your best bet.Thus, you will have to spend on domain name, web hosting, and a theme to get your website up and running.
• Support resource: Your sole purpose is not to get your website live, it is to run your business effectively and make revenue from it. The first thing you will have to do is make your customers happy, which will start when they feel confident about your services. You need to have a customer support service in place to make your customers feel confident about your services.Here’s how you can efficiently improve your customer support:
  • Use Customer Relationship Manager Software: Programs like Salesforce.com, Oracle, and Microsoft Access help you collect important background, including time spent online and search history.
  • Live Chat Option: Using live chat option is easy for both you and your customers. It’s the quick way to communicate and doesn’t require any waiting. Ensuring that your customer gets immediate response for their problems.
  • Customer Care Number: Every reseller hosting website should have a customer care number running effectively 24/7/365. Customers are always looking for a person to talk to, and help them with their problems.
• Promotional Costs: Effectively setting up your reseller hosting website is just a step among many others. To get your reseller hosting website the much needed limelight, you’ll have to promote it all over the internet. Promoting your website is a cost that will get you more revenue in the future.

Branding your reseller hosting business is essential to get more traffic and make people aware of your website. With the internet coming up with lots of new ways to brand and market a business, it’s not difficult getting your website the much needed limelight.

Follow the below easy tips and techniques to market and brand your reseller business. Google is recognized well for its pay per click advertising. Advertising with pay per click will get your reseller hosting business the much needed exposure.

• Begin a Business Blog: Blogging keeps visitors engaged and keeps them on the website for a longer time. Starting a business blog will not just engage your potential customers, but will also help you rank better on the search engines. You can start your business blog by writing about things your website focuses on. For instance, talking about hosting and themes for your reseller hosting business will help your potential customers, while also keeping them engaged.
• Submit your name to many website directories: A web directory or link directory is a directory on the internet. A web directory is a collection of data organized into categories. A web directory will not list web pages based on the keywords but, it lists websites by categories and sub categories. These websites are then searched for by humans and not web-crawlers. You can also bid to rank your website on the top position for the category of your choice. Submitting your reseller web hosting under the best reseller hosting category will help interested users in reseller hosting find you.
• Participate in Web Hosting forums and blogs: A forum is an online discussion board where people ask questions, share their experiences, and discuss topics of mutual interest. As a reseller hosting website, you can participate in forums and blogs related to reseller hosting programs. Answering questions like how reseller hosting works, what is reseller hosting, which is the best reseller web hosting, which reseller hosting plans are best for you and so on, will help you get the attention of people who are interested in buying web hosting.
• Use Email Marketing: As the name suggests, email marketing is marketing through emails. Now, this type of marketing is essential for reseller hosting, as you can send personalized reseller hosting plans to your potential customers. You can use email marketing for sending newsletters, or ask your potential customers participate in a survey. You can also use emails to promote your website if you have an upcoming sale, a product launch or a personalized offer. Email marketing is a great way to get the word out for your business to your potential customers. Try free services from companies like Mailchimp.com
• Issue News Releases: Issuing news releases is a way of sharing a piece of article or communication which is seemingly news worthy. As one of the best reseller hosting provider, you can publish a news release or a press release about your accomplishments, plans and services and much more!
• Promote using traditional media: The time digital media came into being, traditional media was pushed back. Why? Because digital media gets faster results. This is undeniably a benefit for marketers. But, does it mean that traditional media will not get you results? Of course not! Traditional media in the form of newspapers and magazines is still the best bet for reseller hosting. Putting up ads in newspapers and magazines with similar business genre will get your website a good number of reseller hosting customers.
• Use Social Media: I can assure you that every one reading this reseller hosting guide has a social media page. Social media pages for any businesses are essential now-a-days because of the popularity of the same. Using social media you can keep your fans and followers engaged about your new services / plans. Create individual pages for social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and more.

Running a reseller hosting business doesn’t have to limit your services to selling hosting. You can branch out into a lot of products and services, which will help your clients in the long run.

Since you’re running the hosting business, you will generate leads and interest from people who will be interested in services that will make their website function better. Who wouldn’t like to get every service they need from a single web host? It’s beneficial for both the clients and reseller hosting company to get everything in one place.

Below are some services that you can offer along with web hosting:

• Website Maintenance
• Social Media Management
• PPC Management
• Landing Page Creation
• Email Design and Configuration
• Google Apps For Business Set Up
• Conversion Optimization
• SEO
• Web Design & Development
• WordPress Site Setup

You can learn more about each of these services by referring to the links mentioned below.

Every website owner wants to rank their website on the top of search engine results. But, can everyone rank on top? No! Because, only one person will ultimately win the race.

Most websites manage to get through with SEO with the help of SEM. But the problem is, SEM tends to change and sooner or later your competitors will start doing better than you.

Every one wants to rank their website on top but, the only problem is that SEO keeps changing, and no-one wants a penalty for doing something in a wrong way. Google keeps on updating and changing the way it ranks websites on the top of search engine pages.

As a reseller hosting website your best bet is to organically rank your website on search engines. Simply because, the traffic generated through organic SEO is more valuable than the traffic generated through pay-per-click. Here’s why you need to organically rank your reseller hosting website

• Little to no cost for organically ranking your website on the search engine pages.
• Highest rate of return on investment compared to all the other forms of marketing.
• Organic SEO brings in targeted visitors to your reseller hosting website. Most of these targeted visitors can be your potential customers.
• Organically ranking on top of search engines has long term results as opposed to PPC.
• Organic SEO brings in great brand visibility with little to no cost.

But, how can you organically rank your reseller hosting website on search engines?

Having your web pages rank high in Google’s search listings for important keywords can be incredibly valuable. While Google keeps updating here are things you can do to rank well on search engines

• Define a list of Keywords: You need to decide and define the list of keywords for which you would want your website to rank on the top of search engine results.
• Write Interesting Content: Your website will see a lot of visitors coming in when you start posting good content on the website. Before digging into technical ways of improving SEO, consider writing interesting, compelling and SEO friendly content on your reseller hosting website.
• Create Cornerstone Pages: Google has a hard time ranking your reseller hosting website when you have more than 10 pages relating to a similar set of keywords. Merging your content into a single cornerstone page will help your website rank organically higher on search engines.
• Optimize Your Page Titles: The title HTML tag defines a web page’s title and is meant to be a concise description of that page’s content. This is the first thing that appears in the top frames of most web browsers. Google considers page titles to be the second most important on-page SEO element.
• Write Meta Descriptions: Meta description is the description which most search engine pages will display below the title. This is essential in the eyes of SEO and also has the ability of making your link clickable.
• Keep Your URL’s Short and Precise: Short and to-the-point URL’s are easy to remember and describe what the blog is about in one glance. Usually your URL should be of 2 to 3 words but, if it’s called for you can extend it till 4-5. Short URL’s are easier for visitors to remember and recall.
• Embrace Social Media: Sharing your content on social media will ensure that it’s widely reached. Moreover, social symbols are already impacting Google SEO rankings. Industry experts believe that social sharing will only go on increasing and enriching the businesses. If you don’t already have social media pages, then this is the time for you to consider making them.

Now that we have covered everything that you would need to consider and evaluate before starting a reseller hosting business, we can now focus on the technical aspect. Effectively running your reseller web hosting business on day to day basis is not an easy job. You will have to consider every small aspect there is to running a reseller hosting business. Below are some aspects that you need to effectively run your reseller web hosting business-

• Basic Account Setup – cPanel Account / WHM: Your priority for effectively running your reseller hosting business should be to setup your basic cPanel account. Setting up your cPanel account is not rocket science and can be easily piloted by following the steps below
  • Step 1: Log into your WHM control panel.
  • Step 2: In the navigation section to your left, click on ‘Basic cPanel & WHM Setup’. Update the information as required in the contact information and the basic configuration sections.
  • Step 3: Fill in all the details asked from you in the WHM control panel.
  • Step 4: Once all the details are successfully filled, you can move on to creating customer accounts.
• Adding new customer accounts: Adding new customer accounts is a process which you will have to follow with every new customer buying web hosting from you. Follow the below steps to efficiently create a new customer account every other day.
  • Step 1: To create a new customer account, click on ‘new account’ under this section.
  • Step 2: Enter your customer’s domain name.
  • Step 3: Assign them a Username and Password to access their account.
  • Step 4: Enter all the other details of your customer as required.
  • Step 5: Choose one of the reseller hosting packages you earlier created in the drop down list.
  • Step 6: Enter all the other required details, if any. Then, click create.
• Managing Hosting Packages: Creating, managing or updating your hosting packages needs to be researched for and thought out carefully. Follow the below steps to create a new package in your reseller hosting account:
  • Step 1: Log in to your WHM account.
  • Step 2: Click on ‘Add a package’ under ‘Packages’ section on your left.
  • Step 3: On the page that follows:
    • a.Specify a package name
    • b.Resources: Define how many of each item the package offers.
    • c.Update all the settings on the same page.
  • Step 4: Click ‘Add’ at the bottom of the page to create a package.
  • Step 5: In the packages section, you can edit a package, delete and you can even add a feature.