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1. • CommentAuthorpitabread
   • CommentTimeJan 10th 2007

    
   I help manage the website for a mid-sized web hosting business. As you know the web hosting industry is extremely competitive. We run a solid service with 99.9% uptime etc. We've tried AdWords and many other promotions with little success.
   
   So my question is, what would be your top 5 suggestions for promoting/marketing a highly competitive on-line service like web hosting?
2. •  
     CommentAuthorvishen
   • CommentTimeJan 10th 2007

    
   ok - I'd have to be an industry expert to answer you properly. But here are some tactics I can recommend.
   
   Find a niche area that is unfulfilled. For example a lot of web site owners right now are shifting from email newsletters to RSS feeds or membership sites. We're doing the same. There are few good membership site software products out there. Maybe offer these services to your audience. membership sites, split testing, easy content mamagement with Drupal etc.
   
   Of course, for the above to work , you need to find a niche and serve that niche well. Target your hosting to be say "the best hosting for online marketing sites", or "the best hosting for people promoting clickbank products" or the best hosting for professional bloggers.
   
   Now offer find a way to make your service viral. Maybe...
   
   1. allow discounts for people to add a little badge or logo to their site "Hosted by xxxx Host: The Single Best Worldwide Host for Online Marketing Sites". Intel does this tactic to build brand recognition. They give computer makers incentives to paste those INTEL INSIDE stickers on the side of laptops.
   
   2. build a solid affiliate program. I recommend the Butterfly Marketing Manuscript from Mike Filsaime as a model for the affiliate program.
   
   Hope these helped
3. •  
     CommentAuthormike
   • CommentTimeJan 11th 2007

    
   I have often heard that Hurrican Electric is a very successful online web hosting company but their website sucks. Why are they so successful? Because their customers rave about them and perhaps their customers even have an incentive to spread the word. I agree that online PPC via Google AdWords would be very tough because it is a hyper competitive market.
   
   Obviously search engine optimization could work. Try to find out what keywords people search for and if you find keyword phrases with 4 keywords or so, they should be relatively easy to get a winning position if you have blog on web hosting with lots of tips and resources. However, you need to know how SEO works to take advantage of the SEO & Blog Traffic opportunity.
4. • CommentAuthorpitabread
   • CommentTimeJan 11th 2007

    
   Vishen,
   
   It's really (really, really) hard to find a niche in the hosting market. The biggest problem (that we have seen) is that you tend to find "polar" niche's. It's either a very expensive (to get into) niche with a very small target audience or it's a no-barrier niche and as soon as you get good/popular at it there are 100K other hosts that can just jump in.
   
   We do currently run an affiliate program.
   
   Mike,
   
   Your comment about HE really made me chuckle. No offense to HE, but we had equipment located there and it was simply the worst place in the world.
   
   We believe (and our customers do also) that we are very good at web hosting. They do rave about us, tell their friends / colleagues but again, there are 100's of other hosts that people are raving about.
   
   We have done a bit of work with SEO. We had our website "professionally" redone about a year ago. While I can't say it's 100% XHTML compliant we did work hard to be table-less with good markup and structure. I know that is not SEO per-se but it's a start (we believe).
   
   Are we allowed to post links to our sites etc.? Might help if you could actually "see" us.
5. •  
     CommentAuthormike
   • CommentTimeJan 12th 2007

    
   You are allowed to post a link to your site. If it appears to be for the sake of gaining traffic the post will be taken down but if it is too help each other learn then it is fine.
6. •  
     CommentAuthorvishen
   • CommentTimeJan 12th 2007

    
   the one truly good example of a niche host that really does well is sitesell.com. The focus on hosting internet websites for newbies. Started a long term go and much of their software may look obsolete by todays standards. But they have a loyal following despite a hosting fee of $250 / year. Their site is ranked in the top 250 on Alexa last I checked.
7. • CommentAuthorpitabread
   • CommentTimeJan 12th 2007

    
   Hello Guys,
   
   The web site is www.doreo.com I guess rephrasing my original question we're not only looking to get traffic to the site but converting those visitors to clients.
8. • CommentAuthorjoyously
   • CommentTimeJan 12th 2007

    
   Vishen,
   You haven't looked at sitesell.com lately, have you?
   Their focus is NOT on newbies, it's more like "a real web business that works".
   And they release new software quite frequently; it's not obsolete, it's cutting edge.
   That loyal following is what everyone is after, so I'd look a little closer before judging.
9. • CommentAuthorDav1d
   • CommentTimeJan 12th 2007

    
   Take a look at dreamhost.com, and their referral program. I know they are doing OK, so hopefully you can pick up something.
10. • CommentAuthorpitabread
    • CommentTimeJan 12th 2007

     
    Hello Dav1d,
    
    I'm sorry, but I just don't understand affiliate programs like DreamHost's (and many other hosts). They are offering a 97 USD payment for a 9.95 USD account. That's nearly a 10 month payoff. I know that it must be working for them (and lots of other hosts) but I can't see how it works in todays very transient hosting markets.