Who am I?
My name is Daniel Lambert and many years ago I was a volunteer staff member at pouplar free web hosting company Zeeblo.com. At Zeeblo it was my job to create hosting accounts for people and while working at Zeeblo I learnt alot about running a free web hosting company.
In this page I will give you the low down on how to setup a free hosting company and how you can make money from it.
In this page I will give you the low down on how to setup a free hosting company and how you can make money from it.
Table of Contents
What is free web hosting?
Free webhosting is where you can obtain web hosting for free normally in exchange of you making so many posts on the hosting companies forum or you are requried to place an advertisement on your site.
Many free hosts these day come with Cpanel which is a control panel which easily allows you to manage your website and if you are really lucky you may get Fantastico aswell which allows you to install loads of scripts with just a few clicks.
Many free hosts these day come with Cpanel which is a control panel which easily allows you to manage your website and if you are really lucky you may get Fantastico aswell which allows you to install loads of scripts with just a few clicks.
Why would I want to start a free hosting company?
Many people start a free host to make themselves feel good as helping others makes them feel good about themselves or maybe they like the whole community aspect.
However money can also be made from a free hosting company and when I say money can be made I mean some good money can be made. Take a look at this auction on Sitepoint, that free host sold for $2,500 and was making $500 a month.
Interested now? Well, read on and you will learn how to setup your own free host.
However money can also be made from a free hosting company and when I say money can be made I mean some good money can be made. Take a look at this auction on Sitepoint, that free host sold for $2,500 and was making $500 a month.
Interested now? Well, read on and you will learn how to setup your own free host.
1. Reseller or Virtual Private Server?
I assume that you have registered the domain name for your free host, if you have not go to Namecheap.com and register your desired domain.
So, now once you have the domain you need to buy the web hosting and at this stage you have two chooses:
1. Use a reseller.
2. Get a Virutal Private Server
I would at this stage reccomend a reseller as with a VPS you have to do all things such as server management unless you are willing to fork out cash on someone to run the server for you. With resellers all server issues are managed buy your web host. Make sure you buy a reseller which has Cpanel and Web Hosting Manager. Cpanel is a control panel which allows your users to manage their individual site and Web Host Manager allows you to manage the users on your server.
So, now once you have the domain you need to buy the web hosting and at this stage you have two chooses:
1. Use a reseller.
2. Get a Virutal Private Server
I would at this stage reccomend a reseller as with a VPS you have to do all things such as server management unless you are willing to fork out cash on someone to run the server for you. With resellers all server issues are managed buy your web host. Make sure you buy a reseller which has Cpanel and Web Hosting Manager. Cpanel is a control panel which allows your users to manage their individual site and Web Host Manager allows you to manage the users on your server.
2. Choosing Your Billing And Support Software
At Zeeblo.com we created all accounts via Web Hosting Manager and all support was done via the forums. However there is software out there which will act a a billing and support software and will alow you to easily manage all hosting accounts and efficently give support, iPanel is a good one. If you are looking for a free account management system then try cP Creator.
3. Setting Up The Forum
Every good free web host needs a forum so users can come and chat, ask questions and if you don't have a dedicated billing and support system then users may request support on the forums.
The first step on setting up the forums is choosing your software, some that I reccomend are:
Once you have installed your forum software you now need to setup the forum structure, I reccomend something like this:
- News
- Server Issues
- Testimonals and Suggestions
- Pre-Signup Questions
- Hosting Support
- General Chat Forums
The first step on setting up the forums is choosing your software, some that I reccomend are:
Once you have installed your forum software you now need to setup the forum structure, I reccomend something like this:
- News
- Server Issues
- Testimonals and Suggestions
- Pre-Signup Questions
- Hosting Support
- General Chat Forums
4. Creating the hosting packages
Once you have setup all of the above it is now time to choose the hosting packages you will offer. I reccomend that you keep the packages small and offer and ad-free packages and an ad-supported package and your ad-supported package will be better than the ad-free package.
You may however be interested in doing somethign called overselling which basically means giving out more resources than you actually have for example say you had a reseller with 20GB disk space and if you gave each persona 1GB, in reality you could only hot 20 people but no ones going to use the whole 1GB so you can say give it to 30-50 people without having to even worry.
You may however be interested in doing somethign called overselling which basically means giving out more resources than you actually have for example say you had a reseller with 20GB disk space and if you gave each persona 1GB, in reality you could only hot 20 people but no ones going to use the whole 1GB so you can say give it to 30-50 people without having to even worry.
5. Advertising
Once you have your free host all finished you will need to start advertising so people can find your free host. I reccomend advertising on forums such as:
6. Making Money
The part you have all been waiting for!
To make money I reccomend:
1. Offer and ad-supported plan.
2. Place ads on your site and forum.
3. Use web hosting affilate programmes such as Blue Host or HostGator.com.
4. Offer paid upgrades such as MySQL databases, ftp, accounts or email accounts.
Sites You May Need
- HostGator.com
- HostGator.com
- iPanel
- iPanel
- NameCheap.com
- Cheap domains
- vBulletin
- vBulletin forum software.
- How To Choose A Web Host
- It's so easy to start a website hosting company these day, heck even a 12 year old can do it! This is why it is hard to actually find a good company which offers a good service and keeps to its promises. This is why I have decided to spend some time and write about how to choose a good web host.
- Computer Jargon Buster
- If you are like my Mum and don't understand any technical jargon then you should bookmark this page as you will always be coming back and back as this page translates the jargon into pure plain English.
- Nerdcore
- The term 'nerdcore hip hop' was first coined by MC Frontalot in 2000. Nerdcore hip hop which is also know as geeksta rap is a genre of hip hop music which subjects are of interest to nerds such as programming and star wars.
by GeekyDanLamb
My name is Daniel Lambert, my parents decided to give me the name Daniel Lambert :D (more)
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