How Do I Start My Online Business

Register Your Domain Name.

The most basic step towards your online venture is registration of your domain name. Being a reseller web host you should try to avoid registering domain names with other hosting companies. Get your domain name registered directly from a registrar. We use namecheap.com for most of our domain names but you can use any registrar that suits you. The most popular ones are

• www.Godaddy.com
• www.Enom.com
• www.NetworkSolutions.com
• www.Register.com
• www.Namecheap.com

Try to register all the major extensions for example .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, .us etc. This is important for your brand name protection as it avoids domain hijacking or your competitors trying to use your name to sell their services.

Try to be creative when selecting a domain name for yourself. A domain name that is easier to remember is often more suitable as it remains in the head of a potential visitor for a long time.

Secure Your Brand Name.

This is the first baby step you will take towards your ultimate financial freedom. We live in the 21st century. Corporate environment has changed a lot. You can now sue Donald trump just because he has got bad hair or sell Paris Hilton’s private belongings on the Internet just because she failed to pay a $200 storage facility bill. Yes it is silly but in today’s competitive corporate environment you can play with the law or the law can play with you. Your brand name security is very important. What a $7 per year domain is today might be million dollar company tomorrow.

Long gone are the days when search engines were interested in the keywords inside the domain name while ranking the site, therefore you may not go for domains like buy-cheap-web-site-hosting.com. Make sure you choose a classy, corporate and brandable website name for yourself that you can take pride on later.

You can start business in two ways.

• Do Business As
• Corporation or LLC

According to BizFilings.com

“A DBA filing allows a company to transact business using a different name. DBA filings often take place at the county level, but some states have state-level DBA filings. For sole proprietorships and general partnerships, unless a DBA is filed, the company name is the same as the name(s) of owner(s). For example, John Smith is operating a landscaping business as a sole proprietorship. He files a DBA to transact business under the name Smith’s Landscaping instead of as John Smith.

Corporations and LLCs can also file DBAs to transact business under a name different from the name registered with the state when the business was incorporated. For example, a corporation formed as Smith and Sons, Inc. may wish to transact business under a name that more clearly states what the company does, such as The Corner Market, and could file a DBA to use the more descriptive name. A DBA filing does not change the official name of the corporation or LLC. It only allows the business to use a different name in trade, which can be in addition to or instead of the official corporate or LLC name.

Keep in mind that for sole proprietorships and general partnerships, filing for a DBA does not provide the same benefits that forming a corporation or LLC does. Filing a DBA merely allows the company to transact business with the new name. For corporations and LLCs, filing a DBA does not create a new business entity, it just allows the existing entity to use a different name.”

We would recommend that you spend some money to register it as a proper company as it puts a positive impression on any potential client. Look at it by putting yourself on the customer side. Would you rather do a business with unknown or a properly registered firm?

This article is specifically made for resellers working out of United States. The individual laws of the given country can differ accordingly. No matter where you are located a proper company can be way more advantageous in the long run.

For resellers in the US, I have listed the following sites offering quick affordable incorporation services. Clients in other countries should consult their respective local authorities to register their business. I have used google.com and few other search engines and refined the list.

• www.bizfilings.com
• www.corporate.com
• www.activefilings.com
• www.accessincorp.com
• www.form-a-corp.com

It is also considered wise to register your brand name as your trademark. It is optional though as resellers it is assumed that you would have a limited budget but whenever you do have the available funds, it is recommended that you take this step. For web hosting resellers based in the US please visit http://www.uspto.gov/teas/index.html as you can also file it online yourself or ask your lawyer to do it for you. For resellers based outside the United States please contact the concerned authorities for guidance.

Website Design and Creation.

Next basic step is to make your website. If you have skills in web development then you can do it yourself or you can hire a web designer to do it for you or you can use pre-made templates from websites like www.templatemonster.com to download and edit. Needless to say template based sites are turnkey however they do not give a professional image of the website because a single template may be used by tens if not hundreds of other web hosting companies. If you can do it yourself then there is no issue, but if you cannot then it usually recommended that you hire a web designer who will charge you few hundred dollars to either make a template or a full blown website. The days of HTML are slowly dying. Try to get your website made in XHTML with good CSS.

A good navigation structure is very important. Your clients should be able to see what you are trying to sell them. Do not burry your products deep down in your pages. Try to portray a simple yet a comprehensive portfolio of your services. Links should be clear and the text should make sense to ordinary people who have limited knowledge of web hosting. The easy thing to do is to put yourself in client’s shoes and think about the dos and do nots. If it does not click you and you are a sane person, chances are it will not do the same for others too.

We at WebHostingBuzz.com although do not provide turnkey reseller web hosting templates but we do have an online website builder known as the RVSiteBuilder which has few pre-made templates for quick editing and use.

Setting up your Web Hosting Plans.

One of your main selling points would be your web hosting plans. The amount of disk space and bandwidth allotted for a given price will totally depend upon your business plan and specifically your target market. If you are a small time reseller needing reseller web hosting to take care of your web development clients then your hosting plans would be a lot different from the one whose living depends on it. If you want to start a budget hosting company then your web hosting plans and pricing should reflect that. Similarly premier web hosting should reflect respective pricing. In any case make sure to always mention how x web hosting plan is different from y and why I should pay you $60 per month for something that I can get for mere $5 from another company. A good explanation on the website always helps the potential visitor to make the right decision.

Do not setup your web hosting plans just because you want to fill up the page. You can have 100 hosting plans and then again just one and make no difference on sales. The difference should be in terms of their pricing, quotas, type and effectiveness.

Also it is a good idea to make an online submission form for custom quote because not all web hosting clients have the same requirements and expecting everyone to have the same is just plain stupid.

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