Reselling web hosting can be a very profitable and rewarding business. But like any entrepreneurial venture, the steps you take in the beginning will shape how your business is run, ultimately determining long-term success.

By Brent Oxley, President and founder of Host Gator

The first order of business is to find the right reselling provider. You will want someone that is profitable, with a good reputation built on many years of operation. A sizeable reseller channel is another thing to look for. This will show that the company has the proper experience, knows its way around the business and has the customers to back it up.

The most important thing to look for is an uptime guarantee and a track record of upholding that promise. Downtime is the death knell for any new hosting business. Avoid it like the plague and don’t let price or other bells and whistles cloud your judgment. Take the time to read over the service level agreement ( SLA) very closely and know exactly what you can expect.

Make sure you ask about the reseller support arrangements. As a smaller startup, you want a hosting provider that is available to help when you need them. Look for a company that can support you live by telephone 24/7. In an industry built on service, it only takes one or two unhappy customers to tarnish your reputation. You need all the help you can get and that starts with your reseller provider.

Another thing to look for is a domain reseller account. Every web site needs a domain name and many customers just register one first before deciding whether they want a web site or not. Having the flexibility to price your domains enables you to offer discounts, which can be a cheap and effective customer acquisition strategy.

Inquire about the automation tools your reseller account comes with. Your hosting provider will equip you with the use of a control panels such as cPanel/WHM, Plesk or Ensim. This will help you provision,
deploy and manage your services and customer accounts. But also make sure your provider includes a billing manager, which streamlines the process of handling the financial aspect of your business.

Finally, ask about multi-language support. Web hosting is an international business and the Internet has no geographical boundaries. Don’t limit yourself. You never know where some of your customers may come from.

Design a user-friendly web site. Nothing turns hosting customers off more than a complicated and cluttered web site. Keep your web site professional-looking, but simple. Have clear links to sign-up pages and make your forms easy-to-use. Be selective about what you include on the web site. Don’t fill it with unnecessary information. Just get to the point. Stick to plain language and emphasize what your hosting plans can do rather than providing technical descriptions and long lists of specifications.

Marketing your hosting business will likely be the biggest challenge you face. If you are on a small budget, a pricey advertising campaign may not be the right way to go. Banner ads on hosting portal sites can run thousands of dollars and buying the top spots on Google or Yahoo! can be just as cost prohibitive. The bottom line is that a single customer acquisition may cost you up to $100 and that is not something that you are going to make back very quickly.