Asking for advize on paid hosting...

[PaulP]

Hi all,

I may have a strange question. :eek2:

I am owner of www.swprozee1.com and I am running that for over 1 year for free now. I am not a professional webhost but all my users are really happy about my uptime and speed... BUT.......
As the experience and needs from users are constantly growing I have had a lot of users that had to go look for something bigger.

I do get the question if I know a good paid webhost so that they don't need to search in this big pile of information given by everybody.

A few things they always ask me for are:
1) Does the paid host accept 6 months payments. (not a year contract)
2) Do they accept people from The Netherlands and Belgium.
3) Is it a reliable host... (years online, speed, features etc)

Can anybody please advize me where to refer my users to ???

Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,
Paul Prozee.
www.swprozee1.com

 

[monaghan]

Why not get a reseller with a good company and host them yourself ? No point in sending your customers away

I'd advise against anyone asking for 6 month contract, start on a month by month until you're happy with them, when you're happy then go for a long contract to get the discount.

Most hosts should accept Holland, Belgium etc... Many English speaking hosts will only accept English language sites though.

Reliable - check what they offer and do the sums, if it's much less than a few $/Gb then you may be asking for trouble. Speed, features and duration have nothing to do with reliability.

 

[ezXEN]

I would also suggest getting a reseller account or a vps rather then sending your customers to someone else.

<<snip>>

 

[CobraHosts]

Yes, with a reseller account you would be able to keep your customers. If you can't do this for some reason there are some things you should look out for before you refer your customers to any host.

Make sure the host you refer them to has a money back guarantee. If they are unhappy with the host for any reason they should be able to get a refund with no questions asked. Most reliable hosts offer at least a 30 money back guarantee. This way it gives the customer enough time to test server uptime and reliability.

It's really important to make sure the host has been around for awhile. There are a lot of fly by night hosts out there that will over sell their server space and then just go out of business. If the host accepts PayPal as payment gateway, you can check out it's profile by clicking the name on the order form. This will tell you how long the host has had it's account, and also gives a rating of how many PayPal verified customers the host has dealt with.

Another thing to look for is timely customer support. When you are researching a host don't be shy about submitting a support ticket asking general questions about their hosting packages to see how long you have to wait for a response. A good host will usually get back to you within a couple of hours and NEVER more than 24 hours.

And last, but not least, customer satisfaction. Make sure you follow up with your customers a month or more after they have been hosted to make sure they are happy with the service so you know whether or not you want to keep referring your clients.

I wish you the best of luck with your search!

 

[repoman]

Or, if it's hard to keep those customers. Make a deal with a bigger host, for example lets say 50% of what they pay or similar.

 

[TopQHost]

If you get a reseller account, you would be burdened with billing your customers, providing them basic support, etc. It would be better to find a host that has a referral program and send your customers there using your referral link.

 

[aeromit]

It depends of your goals. I can suggest you to accept 6 month payments for hosting plans that cost more than ... $6/month.

About payments from Belgium and Netherlands. Sure! you can use PayPal or any merchant account for that.

You can also explain your reliability by being fair with your prospective customers.

 

[ITahmed]

As suggested, either go for a reseller, if you do not want to deal with the headache, then ask for %50 of their monthly deal.... many hosts would love to do such a deal.

 

[XavierZ]

So you aren't looking for expanding, are you? might be a wonderful chance with clients who already know and trust you.