[METHOD] Make an extra $500+/Month Selling Hosting (New Spin)

So I have been a member of BHW for some time now, and often just read and read and read. Over the past few months my earnings, and income streams have grown immensely, so I figured it was time to start being a more active member of this community and to contribute a method that helped me a lot when I was low on start-up capital.

First thing is first, this is a new spin on an old method, getting sign-ups for hosting affiliates. However I am not targeting small businesses, or any businesses for that matter. Who is the target market then?

COLLEGE STUDENTS.

This is seriously an untapped goldmine, and if you put some actual effort into it, you will see results way better than $500/month. Onto the method:

Step 1) Sign up for any hosting affiliate, I personally used Hostgator, iPage, and Godaddy.

Step 2) Go to any local college (or hire a student to do this part for you), and hand out flyers advertising free personal websites, with your email address. Make sure to have a small disclaimer explaining that the student will need to pay for hosting and a domain name.

This is important. You NEED to make a personal website seem like it is an absolute necessity to these college students. I found it much easier to target students in the Arts who might have a need for an online portfolio. Or business students who wanted to show off major projects that they wouldn't otherwise be able to list on their linkedin page.

Step 3) Close the deal, this isn't a hard sell, a $1 for a domain, $4.95 a month for hosting, and a personalized website showing off their achievements. This method works because it's simple and college students today have it drilled into their heads that they need to stand out from everyone else.

My results were for every 250 flyers I handed out, I had between 4-7 sign ups. Definetly add your own twists, but this method works great, can be outsourced, and is as easy as money making is going to get.

Cheers!

Thank you so much for this method. About how many sign ups would I need to make at least 500 a month. Also how long did you spend on developing each site did you spend a lot of time making these websites to their exact preference or did you just use free templates?

Nice method. Definitely something worth trying out. Thanks for this OP.

Offer them setting up the website service along with hosting for promotional price of only XX$ and just set them up with wordpress and some good looking theme?

moemoemoney10 said:

Thank you so much for this method. About how many sign ups would I need to make at least 500 a month. Also how long did you spend on developing each site did you spend a lot of time making these websites to their exact preference or did you just use free templates?

Click to expand...

Glad you think it might be useful. As far as commissions goes, it varies, i was getting $105 per paid signup from iPage, and the commissions from hostgator are tiered starting at $50. So if you just promoted iPage you would only need 5 sign ups per month to break $500.

strafe6 said:

Nice method. Definitely something worth trying out. Thanks for this OP.

Click to expand...

Thanks man!

Heisenb0rg said:

Offer them setting up the website service along with hosting for promotional price of only XX$ and just set them up with wordpress and some good looking theme?

Click to expand...

Exactly! I used free wordpress templates or just used the website builder from godaddy and picked a clean, professional theme.

Also, since i dont think i answered above, each site took my about 30-45 minutes to set up.

CementPizza said:

Exactly! I used free wordpress templates or just used the website builder from godaddy and picked a clean, professional theme.

Click to expand...

Great to hear, I like when people think outside the box and are willing to share it with others. I'm really too lazy to do something like this.

Heisenb0rg said:

Great to hear, I like when people think outside the box and are willing to share it with others. I'm really too lazy to do something like this.

Click to expand...

Most definetely understandable!

BONUS TWIST:

If you are already a college student, ESPECIALLY at a community college, go to your school's career services office. Tell them you have built yourself a personal website to help with getting a job after graduation, and that you would like to offer this to other students. If your lucky, career services may send out an email blast to the entire student body.

CementPizza said:

BONUS TWIST:

If you are already a college student, ESPECIALLY at a community college, go to your school's career services office. Tell them you have built yourself a personal website to help with getting a job after graduation, and that you would like to offer this to other students. If your lucky, career services may send out an email blast to the entire student body.

Click to expand...

Good idea,Work smart is better than work hard

This method seems doable and also not that hard to implement.

I actually did something very similar to this when I was in university. Instead of just giving them a free websites, I hosted a 2 hour class and showed them how to do it themselves. Not bad when you can get 20 people in at $100 each.

If you're in university, talk to the professors, tell them that you want to help students set up a personal website (I used online resume) for free, and they'll help you get people to the class.

eve121 said:

I actually did something very similar to this when I was in university. Instead of just giving them a free websites, I hosted a 2 hour class and showed them how to do it themselves. Not bad when you can get 20 people in at $100 each.

If you're in university, talk to the professors, tell them that you want to help students set up a personal website (I used online resume) for free, and they'll help you get people to the class.

Click to expand...

Thats an awesome idea. It for sure helps to make friends with any of the administration, it helps establish authority and legitatimacy and will ultimately make you more money.

Thank you OP - this made for a very interesting read and I'm considering acting on your advice albeit with my own twist.

Apologies if this is a stupid question (i'm not familiar with website development) but after the client has purchased a domain + hosting, I'm assuming the next step is that they then need to pass their login details on to you for the purposes of site development? Or do you hold their site as a sub folder on your server and then transfer onto their server once complete?

Thanks in advance.

EVfad said:

Thank you OP - this made for a very interesting read and I'm considering acting on your advice albeit with my own twist.

Apologies if this is a stupid question (i'm not familiar with website development) but after the client has purchased a domain + hosting, I'm assuming the next step is that they then need to pass their login details on to you for the purposes of site development? Or do you hold their site as a sub folder on your server and then transfer onto their server once complete?

Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

Not a stupid question at all! It all depends, i gave each person the option, 9/10 prefered to just give me their login details and then changed them once the site was completed. It was easier for most people to just do that insteae of just transfering the site.

But I still need to buy some domain in order to join the affiliate programe? And how does it work, they buy something for couple of dollars and we get a hundred?

micito00 said:

But I still need to buy some domain in order to join the affiliate programe? And how does it work, they buy something for couple of dollars and we get a hundred?

Click to expand...

You would need to purchase a domanin on behalf of the client, yes. And yes, hosting affiliate programs usually have large commissions, its pretty much an industry standard.

CementPizza said:

You would need to purchase a domanin on behalf of the client, yes. And yes, hosting affiliate programs usually have large commissions, its pretty much an industry standard.

Click to expand...

Hey I wanted to ask when you do this are you setting up the sites with all their info and exactly how they want it? Also do you allow them to choose their web host and then just send your referral or have you been using one of the webhosts more frequently than others? My last question is do you create eccomerce wordpress sites as well for these students?

Setting up the websites exactly how they want seems like it will take lots of time. But thanks for everything and sorry for all the questions lol Im just a newb