Hi Bhatters. First let me thank BHW. I have been around here for lill over 6 months and i have learnt lot here.

To the point - I want to start a Web hosting business. I have acquired resell rights for a hosting company and now I am looking to build a front end website for my web hosting site.

i am looking for a FREE CMS or something as such that can integrate my WHM and the front end website....

Any suggestions???

Can any one here give me some idea on how to set it all up?? Can I use CMS like joomla for this purpose??

BTW I am also looking to give away some free hosting accounts for BHatters just as a way to thank the community.

But first I need a way to set it up friends. CAn some one here help me??

Thanks alllllllllllllll

Trust me, you want to stay away from the biz like the plague. Iv been doing it for 9yrs and stopped pushing webhosting 3yrs ago because there is no money in it. Just look at the prices. Even at $4.95 p/m i could never make enough money to survive with all the undercutting. I only have 2 servers left out of 200 which i started phasing out 3yrs ago.

Getting into this biz would be like cutting your own throat.

I make huge money in web hosting. You just have to be creative and don't try to compete with the big boys.

Originally Posted by BusinessMachine

I make huge money in web hosting. You just have to be creative and don't try to compete with the big boys.

Oh ye, show us some proof. Unmodified that is.

It's not CMS, but here's a few hosting templates..

Code:

http://www.resellerguide.com/p/free-hosting-templates
http://templates4net.com/template.php?&start=1&cat_id=5

The money to be made in webhosting... is in volume.

And it's not in volume shared hosting accounts, it's in volume servers.


Get youself a good co-lo ($1500-6000/mo depending on features/power/bandwidth).

Invest in some good networking equipment ($10,000-15,000)

Buy some BEEFY servers and get familiar with Xen or VMware, and sell VPS's, and pick up bulk server lots off ebay as low-end dedicated servers.


You can buy pallets of 50 servers, getting them for $120/each. $120, for a dual xeon server, 2GB ram, and 120gb hd. Lease it for $60/mo and your hardware ROI is 2 months.

Originally Posted by mikie46

Trust me, you want to stay away from the biz like the plague. Iv been doing it for 9yrs and stopped pushing webhosting 3yrs ago because there is no money in it. Just look at the prices. Even at $4.95 p/m i could never make enough money to survive with all the undercutting. I only have 2 servers left out of 200 which i started phasing out 3yrs ago.

Getting into this biz would be like cutting your own throat.

Not really im making around 8k profit a month after all the cuts for the servers so on. Webhosting is a great business if you have money to invest into it. I remember when i first started around 2 years ago i was spending more than i was making putting in more and more out of my own pockets. You would need atleast a 2000 - 3000 usd if you want to start of( Note this is not a must though). If you get some good dedicated servers and spend a alot on advertising you can make a business out of it. But if your planning on just getting a reseller and not to spend much on the website design and scripts then you wont make it very far.

To the OP:
i suggest you get a designer to make you a original design and get it intergrated with whmcs which is around $17 a month. Whmcs is a great script its pretty much automated which cuts of alot of hastle. And get servers with high bandwhich. Resellers arnt so great if you aim on making it far, since you have to forward yur customers problems to the owner of the company providing resellers so on so it makes life so much harder.

There's plenty of money to be made with hosting, with shared services and not in volume--you just have to step away from your PC to earn it.

Take your reseller account, go out to local businesses in your area, offer them a free website package (you can use Fantastico and free templates to build Wordpress sites minutes) and charge them $35 to $50 per month for the hosting.

If you're willing to manage the pages for them completely, and do updates once a week or even a couple times per month for them, you can double your monthly fee for the service.

If you know anything about SEO and optimizing for local search, you can use that as an add-on service for a higher rate too, or as a service to offer the businesses you approach who already have a web site online.

Any fair sized town or city is still full of opportunity for someone doing this, you just have to go out and meet with owners and managers face to face because you won't attract their business online or with mail/email or even cold calling. You have to go out, shake their hands and convince them why it's a smart investment for them. The upside is these people won't bat an eyelash at spending up to $97 per month just for the hosting and weekly updates service, and if you can show results from SEO and local search optimizing they'll gladly pay hundreds for that too.

My sister does this very thing. She's never had to leave our neighborhood for clients (a suburb outside of a small U.S. city), uses a VPN (virtual server) rather than a reseller account, but that's not a big deal it's just what she purchased when she started up because it gave her more control over the server software, and she's making a nice living with it. Once a week her clients email her with the changes or updates they want made, so she spends 1 day a week on maintenance and then 2 or 3 days per week on attracting new clients. It's a full time living for part time work, but it only works because she can and is willing to sell the service face to face.

Great ideas to start a completely from scratch business.

I have a reseller account with WHM. I want to find a way to make a web site that integrates with WHM and automates the user creation process much as all other hosting sites.

I am new to this field and so I only know to manage the WHM but do not have a clue on how to integrate it with the front end website or template...

If I use a web hosting templte, how do i make it work in correlation with my WHM??

Thanks for the suggestions.

Originally Posted by legoego

It's not CMS, but here's a few hosting templates..

Code:

http://www.resellerguide.com/p/free-hosting-templates
http://templates4net.com/template.php?&start=1&cat_id=5

So onmce I get hold of the templates, how do I get the WHM work with the Templete?? I mean I need to have some link between the templete and WHM right??

And should I use a seperate billing software and should I also integrate it with the templete an d WHM??

Thanks

I would get a reseller account and carve out a niche of some sort. Check out Stone Evans and his Plug In Profit thing. If I remember correctly, he markets to IM newbies saying he'll set them up with a site or something and all they have to do is plug in their aff links. Then charge them monthly/yearly for hosting and whatever else.

To automate, you would need a client management software like WHMCS or Kayako. This will also do billing and support.. you can check out their site and try a demo..

Regarding the template.. you would have to customize the template yourself or hire somebody to do it for you..

Code:

http://www.whmcs.com/demo.php

Originally Posted by scb335

My sister does this very thing. She's never had to leave our neighborhood for clients (a suburb outside of a small U.S. city), uses a VPN (virtual server) rather than a reseller account, but that's not a big deal it's just what she purchased when she started up because it gave her more control over the server software, and she's making a nice living with it. Once a week her clients email her with the changes or updates they want made, so she spends 1 day a week on maintenance and then 2 or 3 days per week on attracting new clients. It's a full time living for part time work, but it only works because she can and is willing to sell the service face to face.

THANK YOU! Finally someone who understands the power of having a pair (whether its balls, or in your sister's case, boobs) and going to talk with business owners face-to-face. If anyone thinks this can get "saturated" (most over-used word on BHW by the way), please grow some stones and go out and try this. It works. Gosh you guys are so small-minded sometimes! Brick and mortar business owners don't think like us - they don't know a reasonable price for hosting from a hole in the wall. If I told you what I've been able to charge for this sort of thing you probably wouldn't believe me.

Originally Posted by mikie46

Oh ye, show us some proof. Unmodified that is.

No, don't share your sites, unless you want them spammed to death...heh. Don't be rediculous. I have a few hosting sites/services as well and have no problem with making money at it. You do have to know what you are doing and can't spam, ad hit or abuse your customers. It doesn't work blackhat at all.

I have a slightly different question to the original poster, but about web hosting. I'm interested in web hosting, but I'm looking to do it just for personal use as a web and graphic designer so I can set clients up with hosting when they come to me. Nothing huge or massively profit making, just something else I can offer them that I can control.

Im not sure why there is some animosity towards this idea, I think some people are just looking at it the wrong way.

I mean, why the hell would you get your own servers when you can buy a reseller package from most major hosts for a fraction of the price. Dont try to compete with them.

The reason these companies offer these reseller packages is because they already own the market place. To make money you need to get customers that arent tech savvy and dont know how to make a website.

I sell websites/blogs to middle aged women who write about fucking baking and picking their kids up from school. They have no idea about the web, I have to help them sign up for a domain name as they don't know how. These are the people you target. They get like 100 hits a month to their site so you can literally rape your unlimited cpanels and not worry about bandwith.

Sell them a site on the cheap, stick up some template or customize one. They will be stoked because it looks cool. Create all their pages for them and give them a login.

Then you can charge them for hosting every month. If you want you can even undercut the big boys as a reseller package is so cheap you can get the money back with 4-5 customers.

Then you can sell them SEO.

And charge for updates.

And charge them more when they start getting more visitors, they still wont know how/be bothered to change hosts.

The hardest part will be dealing with the overhead until you can get enough clients pay the collocation fees. I don't recommend getting a reseller because the company you buy it from can terminate your account and steal your clients. For you, I would recommend getting either a VPS or a small dedicated server.

Anyways, web hosting is a great business to get into. Once you get started with clients, they will spread the word to other prospective clients.

Hope that helps

Originally Posted by thxflash

Anyways, web hosting is a great business to get into...<snip>

Amen! I liken all of the "too much competition" and "cant compete with Big Boys pricing" stuff to all those Guru-clowns who say "stay away from the weight loss and Internet Marketing and Dating and Fishing and etc. markets"...it's bullshit to say you can't compete, you just have to be focused, creative and a little daring to stand up and grab your piece of the pie.

Hosting, site updating & SEO isn't my thing, I tried with my sister and got bored doing it, but it's not a hard business to earn a living with if you're smart and willing to go after the money.

You just gotta want it and be willing to go after it, like any other business model that actually works.

I agree with the issue about the lies and myths of guru.

However, as to the point of the original post...you just have to get in there and do the work. It is that simple. Take care of your customers and keep them up and running.

I use a custom network of servers I own and operate myself, as well as using multiple servers from reseller sources, to insure that my clients never go down and are mirrored somewhere 99.999% of the time. This splits the bandwidth across the servers.

Originally Posted by scb335

Amen! I liken all of the "too much competition" and "cant compete with Big Boys pricing" stuff to all those Guru-clowns who say "stay away from the weight loss and Internet Marketing and Dating and Fishing and etc. markets"...it's bullshit to say you can't compete, you just have to be focused, creative and a little daring to stand up and grab your piece of the pie.

Hosting, site updating & SEO isn't my thing, I tried with my sister and got bored doing it, but it's not a hard business to earn a living with if you're smart and willing to go after the money.

You just gotta want it and be willing to go after it, like any other business model that actually works.

Yeah.. I think it's still profitable.. but my biggest concern was the amount of hours you have to put into this business.. that and getting hacked!!