Web Hosting is a pain the Derriere!
When I first started designing websites I found it increasingly difficult to find a good host who where cost effective. Most who where cost effective where crappy services and those with good service where a bit too high for my clientele at the time. A couple of years of this became a burden until I found out about reselling hosting.
I thought it was the bees knees. I found a reliable reseller that everyone in the hosting community raved about and I thought, “wow I can have the best of both worlds”. I can have a good reliable service that I have control over and make a little money on the side. Well, that is until you start having to do a bunch of extra work you shouldn’t be doing as a web designer.
Setting up the hosting account is not the issue. I invested in web hosting software that streamlined setup, billing and stuff like that but what I find is the problem is with non paying customers, or customers who change their credit cards, or having to walk them through everything that comes with hosting, email for example. I lost count how many times I’ve had to go over email setup with my clients.
Since when is web design about customer support or email troubleshooting or web hosting payments? I’m already knee deep in it but if you are just starting out and are wondering what to do, don’t do what I did. Find yourself a fast reliable host, there are many out there. Some even offer affiliate programs so you still get a slice of the pie. Let the webhost worry about hosting and you worry about making awesome websites!