Ravi Kumar
You’ve finally done it! You’ve finally bit the bullet and committed to owning, operating, and otherwise purveying your very own reseller business. If that is indeed the case, the very first thing we’d like to do is simply congratulate you. This is a big step for any businessman, and with so much work ahead of you, you can rest assured that what you’ve accomplished is no small feat. However, as we’ve already said, owning your own reseller business is going to be anything but a picnic! From the ground-up, there are a thousand variables at work that will either bankrupt you or eventually turn you into the new HostGator. One of the most important choices you’re looking at? Web design
It’s an important aspect to any website, but nowhere is it more important than in reseller hosting. You see, where a normal web design seeks to sell a product, move viewers’ emotions, or just entertain, a reseller site must be a wicked combination of all of these. We’ll talk more about this in just a second, but if you’re in the mood and have the curiosity, you can march on down below the break to view our whole rundown on how you can—right now—improve the look and design of your reseller hosting business’ website. Starting with:
What is Reseller Hosting?
Before we go any further, we suppose we owe you at least a brief introduction to what reseller hosting is. As stated, we assume you’re already acquainted, but on the off chance that you’re new to the realm, let us explain.
Reseller hosting is a new form of business and hosting that’s only just sprung up in the last decade or so. The essential idea that you need to have down about it is this: Hosting companies, if they’re offering a reseller program, have excess server space that they would like to sell to you, a secondary consumer. In this scenario, you sign a year long lease for a chunk of their servers, and they more or less hand you the keys to the kingdom. You’re given a set amount of memory, disc space, and performance to work with. From there, it’s your job to divide up all this acquired space, and then resell it as individual units to your own customers. The hosting company you purchased the space from is not involved, save by offering the services to you.
This means that it’s up to you to establish a brand, market yourself to a niche, and move enough of your own units to turn a profit. This is no small feat, and will require an extensive amount of effort on your part. We’ll be covering these elements in just a second, but it is worth noting that reseller hosting is not all doom and gloom: It is entirely possible to turn a massive profit with the technology, and if you’re willing to put in the elbow grease using the tips we have stored below, we can guarantee that you’ll start to see real results quickly, and without too terribly much fuss. So what’s required to make a competent Hostens reseller hosting website? Find out below!
What Your Reseller Website Should Have?
As we’ve already mentioned, a reseller hosting website is a fair bit more complicated than a typical website. It must encompass so many elements of a traditional site, acing each and every one of them to produce an experience that is fundamentally brilliant. For instance, you’ll want to leverage the eCommerce portion of a website to actually sell your product. However, you’ll also want to provide adequate information to your new customers so that they’ll firstly feel comfortable buying your services, and secondly feel informed about the decision to actually do so. And above all of that, the site must in turn actually look good. It’s no small task, but it’s a lot easier if you know what sort of elements you’ll need to create. To do that, you can use the handy-dandy list we’ve provided below. Starting with:
1. Informational Pages:
The very first section you’ll need to create—and worry about—is the home page. This is what the user will be presented with when logging into your site for the first time, and you’ll want to ensure that they acquire enough information about you right off the bat to want to hire you. Or, even just enough information to make them want to do some more research. This is essential, and if you’re going to take extra special care to make a page look good, this is the one you’ll want to work on. We’ll talk a bit more about aesthetics in a second, but for now, it’s onto the next important element!
2. The About Page:
Let’s assume that you’ve hooked a reader enough for them to want to dig a bit deeper into your company, as well as your services. If this is true, you’re going to want to give them a quick and convenient place to go to find said information. What is this place? An about page. This is the treasure trove where you can mention who you are, where you’re located, and what kind of guarantees you’re willing to fork over. You’ll find a list of these guarantees later in the article, but it’s important to know that you don’t want to overwhelm your readers with text: If this section is too long, you can rest assured that it will go unread. Rather, try to stick to the bare, reassuring essentials. What would you like to know if you were signing up for a new web host? What did you look for in your reseller hosting account? All of these can give you some pretty good indications as to what information your users will need. With all of that in mind, simply put it on the page!
3. A Service Page:
Now, this is a big one. You see, if the reader we’ve been talking about has stuck with you long enough to firstly want to look into your company more, and now research your services, you’re going to want to be sure you’ve brought the goods. What we mean is, you’re going to want to design a page that accurately, competently and without hesitation describes the services and pricing that you offer. The easier this is to read the better, and if this page is hard to get to, you can be sure that the reader simply won’t go there. Don’t fret over this too much. Just put something simple and efficient down, and then focus a lot harder on the next important element.
4. The Sales Page:
If the user has a real interest in gaining your services and using you as their web host, they’re going to need a place to actually do this. This means creating some kind of checkout and eCommerce portion of your website. This is crucial, as the entire page or series of pages must be capable, easy on the eyes, and absolutely simple to understand. There’s nothing worse than signing up for a service when the checkout system is absolute rubbish. Not only will your customers not feel secure in handing over their money, the entire page will reflect poorly on the services they’re actually acquiring. In other words, spend a lot of time here, and be sure that this is the focus of your website’s flow: After all, you do want potential customers to end up here!
5. A Log-In Panel:
Success! You’ve now secured a new set of customers, customers who are now quite eager to start cracking away at their fresh accounts. With this in mind, have you provided them with a place to go to actually do so? What we mean is, have you included some kind of management panel for your users to access their data, make personal changes, and otherwise customize the spaces that you have just leased? If not, you’re going to want to hop on that train, Soldier! Gone are the days where one could simply hand over a set of FTP passwords and let the customer loose. No, you’re going to need either cPanel or Plesk, as well as custom and protected accounts for each and every one of your new users. This isn’t just for them: Locking down their access to your servers and ensuring that they aren’t poking around under the bonnet means a safer, and more efficient server for you. In other words, now that you’ve got the people knocking at your door, give them access to what they want!
6. A Support System – Contact Page:
This is the last element that you must have to be a successful hosting reseller, we promise. You see, invariably when it comes to shared web hosting, your users are going to experience problems. These problems aren’t necessarily your fault, but they will arise, and either way your customers are going to want to be able to get an hold on you. With that in mind, give them what they want! Create some kind of support network for your users to access you and your information with. This might be as simple as a contacts list with a phone number and some email addresses. If you’d like, there are several utilities out there that can create wholly complex support ticket systems that provide you with a professional way to answer questions. The breadth of this section is up to you, but we do want to caution you: Your users will be quite a bit more than miffed if they cannot get a speedy answer to a troubling problem. We’ve learned this the hard way, and we’d rather you were spared the agony.
