[Need Help] Building a web hosting business/website.

Thanks for taking a look at my thread, I just have a few questions and was hoping that someone could point me in the right direction. I do SEO but I'm not savvy by any means when it comes to web development. So, what I'm wanting to have built is a site similar to Wix, a site where a user can come on, pick out a predesigned template, customize it to their liking and then pay a monthly fee to have the website connected to their domain.

Can you please outline for me what this would entail? How much would it cost to have each of the templates designed? There would probably have to be at least 75-100 templates so users have a decent variety to choose from so this could become rather costly pretty quickly I would imagine.

Any tips would be very much appreciated, I have awesome methods for driving clientel to sign up for this type of a service so I really want to get this off the ground, I just need advice from someone who is experienced.

Feel free to recommend a web developer or if you develop websites yourself (And you have a portfolio), please let me know below.

Looking forward to your responses!

There are quite a few designers you can contact in the marketplace.
http://www.blackhatworld.com/blackhat-seo/f201-web-design/

You could use an already existing provider for your website builder.

A Small Orange uses weebly I believe.

So would I be able to integrate Weebly in to "my own" site as the platform for users to build sites but I collect payments from sign ups or would it strictly be commission based?

buddy you need to chat with some developer about it, he might give you good suggestions. but what's your budget for project, if I may ask?

clarkxie said:

buddy you need to chat with some developer about it, he might give you good suggestions. but what's your budget for project, if I may ask?

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I'm prepared (If need be) to invest up to 10K, the reason being is because I want it done "right". I understand all of the templates will need to be designed and the site will need to be custom coded, it's a site that is going to take a lot of hours to complete. Of course, if I can spend less and find a "plug in" solution then that would be great, the more I can save without compromising the quality of the final product the better.

Check out the marketplace and talks to some of the more established developers. Since you are prepared to invest in your project and have a plan (so many people want to do this without spending money and without a plan) you should have no problem finding a professional who can give you a serious proposal.

You will want to get a programmer to develop what you are after. You won't get it ready made.

Put your requirement on scriptlance or similar freelancer websites and you will have proposals in no time.

This is a much bigger project than you can think off actually. It would need loads of money, commitment, dedication and good marketing at a later stage to make it successful. Conside a few points i have given below.

1) First of all, you should prepare a 'Scope of Work' document listing all the possible INs and Outs of the project you want to carry out. It's not just building out a few templates and then getting customers to use those templates.

2) You should know, what kind of features do you want to put in the UI/UX and editing part of template. Because that is the most critical part of the project. How will the changes be translated to the actual web design? Will it have Drag'n'Drop feature to move things here and there or will the customers have to do little coding to get the changes done. As you mentioned that you want a site similar to Wix, so you should know that Wix started back in 2006 and now they have more than 1000 employees working and still not able to match the quality other startups have produced in the industry. The only PRO feature they have is being free to an extent that attracts a larger customer base.

3) How will you handle the website hosting part of the project. I am asking this because you mentioned that you will charge your customers to pay for connecting their domains with your setup. That would actually need some resources technical and human aswell to manage all this.

So to me its like a bigger plan with no plan. So start small, have some templates designed and try to sell them or use Themeforest or whatever to make commissions and then look towards the bigger part once you are established, you have lots of funds and all the resources to manage such a business.

Anyone can disagree to what i said. These are just my thoughts because i am running quite a few businesses so i know what it takes to manage these.

Edit: This project is bigger than the capabilities of a single designer/developer you can find on freelancer, elance etc. So i would advise you not to watse time over there.

Simple words : a professional site/project can't be done automatticly with a plugin , just look on the marketplace section for a high reputable designer , get in contact with him to see if he can translate your imagination to reality ! that's all .

Do you really think its that simple? Have you even read his idea that what he wants to accomplish?

Setox said:

Simple words : a professional site/project can't be done automatticly with a plugin , just look on the marketplace section for a high reputable designer , get in contact with him to see if he can translate your imagination to reality ! that's all .

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Thanks for your input, yes, I understand this is a large project which is the reason I'm willing to invest 10K (Although this still may not be enough). The last thing I'd want to do is invest this amount just to find out the website is not able to be completed with this budget and have a site that is not ready to promote to make money. I don't need a site with this much invested sitting around collecting dust.

gmsniperx said:

Do you really think its that simple? Have you even read his idea that what he wants to accomplish?

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Lool ! i've just want to say that his project is big , as he haven't skill on coding as he say ! he should look for someone ! that's it !

The project he want to build require lot of work, a proper team and lots of dedication to make it successful. I started working on making a managed wp network where users can register for free and build a basic blog or website and i have to tell you that i encountered lots of problems starting from the technology used in such enviroment.

We made lots of optimizations to servers, replaced php with hvm, implemented redis cache so that users don't have to worry about setting up complex caching plugins. We are now working to automatize the connection of their personal domain once they decide to upgrade to paying plan.

I can talk about this subject a lot but i don't think this si the point here.

I've already sent a pm to the OP with more informations about my project. His financial resources will be of great help for us to further improve our solution. I am saying only about financial resources cause i don't know much about him or what he is good at.

That is exactly what i feel about this business model that it requires a lot of work to accomplish fruitful results.

mazgalin said:

The project he want to build require lot of work, a proper team and lots of dedication to make it successful. I started working on making a managed wp network where users can register for free and build a basic blog or website and i have to tell you that i encountered lots of problems starting from the technology used in such enviroment.

We made lots of optimizations to servers, replaced php with hvm, implemented redis cache so that users don't have to worry about setting up complex caching plugins. We are now working to automatize the connection of their personal domain once they decide to upgrade to paying plan.

I can talk about this subject a lot but i don't think this si the point here.

I've already sent a pm to the OP with more informations about my project. His financial resources will be of great help for us to further improve our solution. I am saying only about financial resources cause i don't know much about him or what he is good at.

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Building such a site is one thing and competing with those that already exist is another. Make sure you know what you are doing before going for it.