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Reseller Web Hosting – Pros and Cons

Reseller web hosting is not for everyone but it is becoming more and more popular in the hosting and web design industry. Many web developers, marketers and web designers purchase reseller web hosting since it is a great way of offering their clients a complete package and making extra money. Reseller web hosting comes with both pros and cons - here are five points representing both sides.

The Pros

• The first, and probably most obvious, advantage with reseller web hosting is that it can be very profitable. The hosting itself is not expensive and when offering it with something extra, like web designing services, you will be able to sell it at a much higher price.
• If you want, you could stick your name or logo to everything you create, also called white labeling. Remember though that doing this can damage your credibility if done poorly. Running a branded hosting with flare and passion will successfully increase the strength of your brand.
• High costs, such as server maintenance, will still be the headache of the web host. All of the really technical issues will remain the job of the web host and they will not charge you anything extra for this. Customer support however, can either be the responsibility of you or the hosting provider – all depending on the type of reseller hosting you are offering.
• You will have more flexibility than say a shared hosting plan because one hosting account can manage all of your clients.
• Themes and user-interface of the control panel with which your clients will work can be changed and tweaked by you. This will not only be appreciated by your clients, it will also make your professional work more enjoyable.

The Cons

• If you ever were to change web host then you will notice that it is not as easy to do as with other forms of hosting. This will not only be inconvenient for you – your clients will be affected by this.
• You will have to place trust in the hosting provider. If they are having problems with their servers then all of your clients will have problem with their websites.
• When you run out of your portion of disk space or bandwidth then it will not be possible to increase it immediately; which could lose you a client or two.
• As with all businesses that become popular, the reseller industry is competitive. Do not count on making thousands at the beginning.. First you have to deliver an excellent product and understand the business, then market the product well.
• Investigate everything from the uptime to the quality of the customer service; your reputation depends entirely on host’s reliability. Also remember that there will be a lot of sunken costs at the beginning. The hosting itself may not be pricey, but you have to set aside money for marketing and advertising.

All in all, this kind of business is not for everyone. If you are in business that completes this type of hosting, expanding your business along the hosting lines is perfect.

People who tell you they make thousands every month and do nothing, are pretty much lying. Keep that in mind. Yet in a tough economy, the internet is sitting in its own world. Startups and new ideas are successful everyday; good tidings for us then. If you have technical know-how and enjoy web hosting, then reseller hosting would be a great business opportunity. Good luck and if you start a reseller business, be sure to post it here at ScrappyUpstarts!

Guest Author - David Walsh, of WebHostingSearch.com

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Bootstrapping Your Business

Great article for Scrappy Upstarts about bootstrapping at YoungEntrepreneur.com

20 Ways To Bootstrap Your Business:

1. Start A Service

2. Figure Out What Makes The Most Money

3. Get Volunteer Help

4. Hire Part Time

5. Automate

6. Form Partnerships

7. Use Pay Per Click

8. Use Search Engine Optimization

9. Leverage The Media

10. Think Big, Start Small

11. Do Something Every Day For Your Business

12. Don’t Quit Your Day Job Until You Can Afford To

13. Turn Everyone Into A Referral Partner

14. Watch Your Payments

15. Start At Home

16. Share Your Office

17. Barter

18. Lease Don’t Buy

19. Hire Friends / Family

20. Create A Rainy Day Fund

YoungEntrepreneur.com

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Small Business Tax Tips

Good post over at InfusionSoft:

Featuring links to some useful “Last Minute Tax Tips” For Small Businesses.

For those of you running your small business from your home, Score.com recommends to:

• Use your home office exclusively for business. The IRS won’t let you take a deduction for your kitchen, just because you use the kitchen table as your desk. You must have a separate room or partitioned area that’s devoted to business use.
• List your home address as your principal place of business, even if part of your business, like a warehouse, is outside your home. Make sure you have a desk, filing cabinet and separate phone line for your business.
• Store your merchandise or supplies on your property — in a detached shed, spare closet or your garage — instead of renting a warehouse. You’ll save on rental costs and get a tax break for the space you use.

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Peter Schiff has a time machine.

I am convinced after watching this.

I love that he was yelled at for predicting EXACTLY what we are seeing.

Thanks to Brian Jones for originally posting this.

More importantly, see Peter talking about 2009 last month, he was still getting yelled at!

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Holiday Shopping Sales Fell 3%

According to comScore - holiday e-commerce was down 3% year-over-year - spending totaled $25.54 billion, from $26.33 billion during a similar period last year.

First time since 2001 when they started tracking this.

Some winners: HP site visitors jumped 28%; Amazon’s traffic increased 7%.

Ebay was the most visited site but was 4% down from last year.

No surprise Circuitcity.com visits were down 21%, and Dell dropped 17%

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“The Great Disruption”

The Great Disruption. Is this how we will be referring to our current economic times?

Scott Anthony poses that question at Harvard Business Publishing.

He goes on to discuss how to Thrive in the Great Disruption stating it requires a particular breed of innovator.

Specifically, innovators should look to master three disciplines:

1. Placing a premium on progress.
2. Mastering paradox.
3. Learning to love the low end

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I only care about doing.

I don’t care about Steve Jobs or Michael Dell.

There I said it. I don’t even care about the guy who just secured $9 million in venture funding. I don’t care about Tim O’Reily waxing philosphical about online serendipity. I don’t care that TechCrunch says Google and Adobe are great places to work.

I care about the guys (and women) in the long tail of it all. Not making a million bucks, but making it. Cashing a $2,000 adsense check? Good for you! How? Getting by on 8 new customers a month? Great! How? Figured out how to make a living without going into an office? Fantastic! How? Moved your brick-and-mortar successfully online? Awesome! How?

Look there is a tremendous amount to learn from the analogs of Steve and Mike and the rest - no question - I’ll watch, I’ll read - but for the love of God, stop letting internet media stay at the 30,000 foot level - You want to succeed? DIG DEEPER!

Philosophical diatribes won’t help you succeed in the trenches. Vague predictions about “new media” or “social marketing” aren’t going to put food on the table.

Tactics, execution, dedication - How are you doing it? Be specific! Speak up!

[Author's note: No one is going to respond to me. I know it. Either no one is listening (possible, this site is only a month old), no one cares - that too, then you might as well go back to solitaire, or no one has any idea how to really do it...Then tell me that.]

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What Obama needs to do to create momentum

From a recent post at discussionleader.com: Memo to President-Elect Obama: 7 Moves to Create Momentum

Michael Watkins writes an open memo to President-elect Obama.

He begins by citing the “contrast effect” , which basically says we distort our perceptions of something’s performance based on immediate previous exposure, in other words, Obama may have an easier time changing things since things are so desperately in need of change.

Michael also cites 7 principles Obama, as a strong leader, should put into action after assuming the Presidency:

1. Organize to accelerate learning.
2. Establish your A-item priorities.
3. Define a compelling vision.
4. Get your new team in place fast.
5. Secure early wins, in the right ways.
6. Build a ruling coalition anchored in the “middle third.”
7. Leverage a balanced advice-and-counsel network.

To Obama: Your transition has to be the best the nation has ever seen.

Michael Watkins, is the same guy who wrote: “First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels”.

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Will the economic downturn drive an increase in online sales?

I started writing this thinking, “yeah, sure - uplifting news to follow. Not so much - looking at the November 2008 Monthly Retail Sales Comparison, I expected to see a clear uptick. I then headed over to emarketer.com and I was greeted with “2008 was not a good year for e-commerce.”

Granted we are looking at a 10% increase over 2007, but overall we are looking at a growth rate decline of about 20%.

I mean, all the earmarks are there for an upturn. At no time in history have consumers had more access to more choices in terms of product and price.

With e-commerce sites becoming easier and easier to search, browse and checkout one would expect to see that upturn in online sales.

The unfortunate news is, it has not happened. In 2007 we saw a 20% increase over 2006. This year we are seeing just a 10% increase over 2007. And we know the stakes are high for many of these retailers who are teetering on bankruptcy.

Happy New Year?

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SEM in a down economy webinar

The people over at ‘Target Marketing‘ magazine are hosting a webinar entitled 18 Ways to boost your SEM Performance in a down economy. Its January 13 at 2pm EST.

They plan to cover:

• How to increase your ROI even as CPC costs continue to clim
• How to beat your competitors‚ keyword rankings with lower PPC bids
• How to increase your campaign’s conversion rate
• How to save money on testing by utilizing past data

You’ll be able to submit questions directly to their speakers for a live Q&A session during the hour.

Click here to register.

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5 tips for effective blog optimization

Lee Odden over at TopRankBlog has a great new article outlining 5 tips for successful business blog optimization.

After writing the Virtual Ad Agency blog for just a little over a month - I have to agree with this point wholeheartedly:

Without proper planning, oversight and passion for the topic, blogs implemented purely for SEO objectives are doomed to fail. Additionally, social media referrals and recommendations are becoming a notable competitor to search traffic which can place SEO as a secondary promotional effort in some situations.

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The 2008 Election - In Marketing Dollars

As a marketer I am often asked to analyze the potential ROI of a particular campaign or marketing venture. This can often be a lot harder than it looks. Many parts of the ROI are embedded deep under the skin of the consumer and don’t show up on a dollar and cents spread sheet.

If you look at the 2008 election in terms of return on investment there is something deceiving about the numbers.

Looking at the dollars spent and votes cast we see McCain spent about $3.50 less than Obama. But in the end we know the net result and the brand that Barrack Obama has built.

Among the things not factored in is the general intangibles - in this case Obama’s win plants him not only in the White House but firmly in the American zeitgeist as well. How do we measure that? If that were a point on the metrics when establishing the ROI what dollar figure would be appropriate?

In the end marketing investment metrics need to not only ask what is the “sales goal” but what is the intrinsic value to the brand? The hardest part will be quantifying that.

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MyCorporation.com - FREE Inc’s and LLC’s

Starting Monday, Dec. 1 through December 5th [UPDATE: Offer extended until Dec. 31] - MyCorporation.com is offering any Inc or LLC formation FREE. They are waiving their usual $149, but state mandated filing or publication fees and shipping charges will still apply.

Its a great discount - depending on your state you can legally form your business for less than $100.

MyCorporation is an Intuit Company - the same guys who make TurboTax. They cut through the paperwork and details and really make forming your business easy. Remember, the benefits of forming a corporation or LLC can include: protecting assets through liability protection , tax savings, reducing chances of a tax audit, and developing a professional identity with customers.

Use coupon code MYGIFT to get a FREE Inc. or LLC from MyCorporation.com

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Google SEO Starter Guide

Last week google released a very helpful 22 page SEO guide. Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

The guide discusses everything from optimizing your page titles for better organic results to decoding the search results page. It spends a disproportionate amount of time discussing the value of creating fresh, unique content. Certainly that goes without saying. But it struck me as odd - if my content was so phenomenally unique and this alone assured perfect google attention - then why clutter my thoughts with all I need to do to optimize search, certainly I could just focus on being a genius pontificator. Alas this is not the case, I still need to be found, an judging by the lifeless works that come up with most of my searches, I think those of us that take time to craft our prose or discuss a topic thoughtfully should be more mindful of our SEO. Download the PDF here.

The guide does a great job of touching on all the important points including effective use of robot.txt file, site maps, and page structure.

It also mentions a webinar video back from this past June. The Google Trifecta - a great discussion on how to improve your site. The Trifecta Video is embedded below:

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Growth Strategies

We are seeing countless articles talking about starting up in this economy, but Mike Michalowicz of Toilet Paper Entrepreneur does a great job of analyzing how an already established business can take best advantage and really grow in the current financial climate.

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