Best Way To Promote A Webhost?

I started up the site www.IcoHosting.com a few weeks ago and I've been advertising alot on forums and sites but I've received 0 sales in the 2-3 weeks we've been open.

If anyone can help with ideas I would greatly appreciate it.

Kind regards,
Jack Wakefield

 

Been there, done that. My advice would be not to expect sales so quickly, especially in your first month of opening.

I'd suggest advertising through banners and sitewide links on reputable sites. You can also try an advertisement listing on SitePoint, which I'm sure you've tried before. You might also want to try MySpace? after all, it IS one of the biggest sites on the web in terms of traffic and members. There are quite a few people here selling bulletins. I'd recommend money_train and ajg555 (I think that's his name).

Not sure if that helps much, but oh well.

 

Target the long tail (If there is such a thing in hosting).
Your trying to break into one of the highest competition industries our there. You'll need to offer something pretty special to compete.

 

I suggest you submit your site to ReviewMe

 

Have you tried any PPC campaigns? Also, look into giving away free features that are normally paid (i.e. domains, adwords credits, a copy of SEO Book, etc.)

 

Yeah, you might want to offer a bunch of php scripts or bonuses as incentive. That could work too.

 

Yeah its a tricky one!

I'd say possibly try offline marketing - hosting biz is saturated

 

tell me about it, i know how u feel.
Now i use a team that i outsource all advertising, link building, article writing etc.
They are pretty reasonable, pm me if u want there contact details

 

I have received far more interest from small local companies who want to get themselves online. Try taking out an advert in a local newspaper, or one of those free local booklets that often come around.
This method would work better if you knew a few people who would be able to design websites too, as local companies will usually want one solution.

I used the money i got locally to help expand my site to reach a wider audience online.

 

That is a great idea for starters.
Generally when on internet, we tend to forget about the benefits of offline advertising.

BTW, word of mouth advertising works the best. Tell your friends about it, your relatives and let them spread the word for you.
Bye

 

Stay away from PPC to promote web hosting You might end up wasting a LOT of money very soon. The current bids are $5/click to atleast get your ad seen by enough people to convert into sales.

My suggestion is pick a niche, offer very specific addons or features or "perfect environment" hosting for a rare cms. Then SEO your site for the niche(s)'s keywords and be #1 for all those keywords. You'll get all those visitors and have a high conversion ratio

Also, maintain a friendly presence on web hosting & webmaster forums, offer special deals & discounts on these forums. Sponsoring (providing free hosting to) medium-high traffic sites with a readerbase of webmasters or other people who're likely to be on the lookout for web hosting is also a good idea.

 

start at a discounted price, something like $2 a month for 1st 3 months and then charge the genuine price like $7 / m, i am sure if webmasters love your service they will stick to your hosting company, initial push will be needed in form of discounted price

 

Niche is something you should so.

For instance, target developers :

1) Give them php 4 + php 5
2) mysql 4 + mysql 5
3) Tools like smart publisher (http://smart-publisher.gr/)

I agree that PPC can't really help, myspace wont work either. You need mostly to create a brand name from your ads, not sales.
This is because people may need a host in general, or they want to switch hosts, but not right now. Your work is to make them remember your name when they will decide

 

And once you get your first 100 clients then have a referral program. If you provide good support & uptime then word of mouth works very well in the hosting business

 

The best way to get clients is local advertising, try door-to-door sales to local companies. You will not get much from ads on the web.

Good luck...

 

Ohh dont go near PPC unless you have some deep pockets,

I was just working on a client at $6.00+ per click...ouch

You will need an USP to beat an already crowded market.

Offline marketing is a great idea and you can easily find new clients.

Look in the local yellow pages for lawyers, doctors, mechanics, bakeries, etc who have businesses but no website. Contact them and offer to build and host a brochure page for them at $9.99 per month.

From there its drive traffic to their page...get the phones ringing for them and then UPSELL!

 

I was very successful in a related industry. You are hurting yourself by announcing that you just opened for business in the "News" section on the left. You also need to focus on some of the smaller details of your website, such as a catchy logo(check out www.hostgator.com for an example). The image of your site should allow you to come off as a business that is settled in, knows what it's doing, and knows what their customers need-- but this doesn't mean lie and tell them you've been around since 2001.

 

Hosting IS A very high market and very very hard one so it's hard at the begining ...

 

unless you can give the public something no other established company can give...not many will choose you (ie...free scripts, free design service etc...)

 

Okay thanks ALOT for the replies guys.

I'm currently working on a much cleaner design and I'm also working on a new logo.

I have some php scripts which I have resale rights for so I can give them away with the hosting. I will also think of more ideas and submit the finished site to reviewme.com

Once again, thanks alot.