When looking for hosting on the website of a major web host, you may have seen a “reseller” option and wondered what this was for. You may have even seen something like “You can make a ton of money by having your own webhosting company”. But is all of this really true? Can you really make money as a hosting reseller? If you were dreaming of having your own webhosting company, is this the answer?

Well, it is possible to make some money as a reseller. But there are some drawbacks to that too. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages and some of the drawbacks.

Advantages of becoming a reseller:

• You will get server space, management tools and billing tools provided by the web host

This will allow you to effectively start your own web hosting business, without all the overhead that is normally involved, such as renting out space, buying servers, paying for the internet connection, etc. Since the web host provides you with all the tools to manage your operations, managing your customers accounts will also be easy.

• Many webhosting providers that offer reseller accounts also provide you with marketing tools

To make things easier for you, many webhosts will give you website templates that allow you to build a great looking site for your new hosting company. Some of them also give you templates for marketing materials, such as banners, articles, etc. This can be very helpful when you are seeking to attract new customers to your business.

Some drawbacks:

• You will be responsible for providing support

As the hosting reseller, customers will be asking you questions and reporting any issues that they have with their hosting. It will then be your responsibility to resolve these issues or forward them to the webhosts’s technical support department. While this may not be an issue if you have only a few customers, it can take up a lot of your time if you have hundreds of them.

• You will face a lot of competition

If you have taken a look at the world of webhosting, you will see that it is an industry that is extremely competitive. Of course, there are around two dozen of the “big players” out there, the major webhosting companies like GoDaddy and HostGator. But there are thousands of other, smaller webhosting businesses, many of which are resellers. This means that you will have a hard time competing with all of them and will need to be very creative in order to attract enough customers to make being a reseller profitable.

An alternative to becoming a reseller

If you want to make money from the hosting business, there is another option open for you. You can become an affiliate of a known webhosting company and get paid commission for every new subscriber that you send to them. This is much easier than becoming a hosting reseller and can be just as profitable, if not more.

When you first start out with internet marketing, success can seem very far away. There’s no guarantee that any new project you launch will succeed, and the work can be hard. There are a few things you can do to set yourself up for success though.

Build A Network

Having a network of other internet marketers, and influential people in your niche at your disposal can be a great help in launching any new project you might be working on.  You can get valuable advice that might help with your launch, as well as a little free word of mouth advertising. The easiest method for building a good internet marketing network is through social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Do a search on either site for your niche, and for internet marketing, and try to befriend anyone who has a lot of other friends or followers. Once you’ve made some friends in internet marketing, and your niche, they can help you to launch your next project successfully.

Keep Up With Technology

The internet, and technology as a whole are constantly evolving. In order to be successful with internet marketing, you need to pay close attention to what direction the internet, and technology as a whole are taking. If you know what people are talking about online, and how they’re doing that talking, you’ll be better equipped to join in the conversation. For example, a few yars back, when social networking sites started popping up, the first people to figure out how to effectively use them as marketing tools were hugely successful. For a little while, they didn’t have a lot of competition to worry about, and as such, they enjoyed a great deal of success. If you stay on top of trends, you might find yourself getting a head start on the competition the next time a new service catches everyone’s attention.

Target Your Audience

Once you know what product or service you want to sell, you have to figure out who you plan to sell it to. You’re going to have to do a little market research about who is going to want to buy your product. Think about their age group, income bracket, and any other factors that might help you determine the right way to get their attention. With this information in hand, you’ll be able to construct a well thought out marketing campaign.

Unless this is your first time on the internet, you’ve probably heard of social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, and StumbleUpon. These sites can be very effective marketing tools, but only if you use them the right way.

It’s important not to submit too many things to any one social bookmarking site. If you post a lot of things, and only a handful of them ever get popular, you account won’t be looked on favorably by other users, or the site itself. Most social bookmarking sites have anti-spam policies in place to prevent their users from abusing their site. If an account posts too many things in a given day, week, or month, that account will eventually be flagged as a potential spammer. Instead of posting a lot of links to one social bookmarking site, consider posting a handful of links to a lot of social bookmarking sites. If something does well on one site, it’s likely to do well on another.

Don’t just submit your own links to a social bookmarking site. Again, most of these sites have strong anti-spam policies in place, and if they see an account posting nothing but links from the same site, or the same handful of sites, that account is likely to get flagged as spam. Instead, try to find a few interesting things from other sites to share on days when you’re not sharing anything from your own site. Also, consider asking other users to submit your content. If your content is high quality, you won’t have trouble finding someone else to submit it for you. That way, you still get the benefits of having your link on a social bookmarking site without the risk of having your account flagged as spam.

The key word in the term social bookmarking is social. Remember to make friends with other users. If you have a vast network of friends on a social bookmarking site, those people are more likely to vote your link up on that site. Taking the time to make some friends can lead to a significant increase in the amount of traffic each link you submit gets.

So remember, post nothing but high quality links, avoid posting too many of your own links, and make friends. By doing those things, you can ensure that your social bookmarking account will grow popular, and your links will get popular along with it.

Facebook and Twitter have become a part of the lives of a great number of people, so it only makes sense to try and use those services to get your message out to your target audience. So all you have to do is sign up for them, and put up a few links to your website, and the traffic will just pour in, right? Wrong. There are a lot of things to consider before diving into marketing your site through socian networking services.

The most important thing to remember whether you’re thinking about a Facebook or Twitter account is that there has to be an actual human being running the account. There is plenty of software out there that will post updates about your website to either service automatically, but that software should be used alongside a person making regular updates, not instead of a person making regular updates. Just remember, the key word in social networking is “social”. People use Facebook and Twitter to connect with other people, and giving them that connection is a big part of using social networks effectively as marketing tools.

When using Twitter, make sure you take the time to talk to your followers. If someone @ replies you, be sure to answer their question or address their statement. Same thing goes for direct messages. If you have a healthy number of real tweets crafted by a real human being, your followers are way more likely to click on links to your site when you tweet them.

Facebook works a little differently. When you’re setting up a Facebook page, you should take a minute, and think of something elated to your niche, and create a page about that rather than about your specific website. For example, if you have a website that sells luggage, start a Facebook page about travel. Once the page has a good number of fans, start throwing in some links to deals on your site in between posts about travel. That way you’re certain to reach your target audience in a meaningful way.

If you’re careful to give your social marketing campaign a friendly, human feel rather than just letting software post updates to Twitter and Facebook for you, you will drive more traffic to your links, and get more attention from your target audience. With no sign up fees or other costs involved, Facebook and Twitter can be affordable, and powerful marketing tools if used correctly.