Suggestions?

[Scott]

For an up and coming hosting affiliate, I am always looking for new ideas.

What is the best way to drive sales in the hosting world?

[lnxcode]

It's hard to say what is the best thing to do. What I try to do when I work at HostICan is constantly find areas we can improve in. For example, this forum - its something that will increase traffic and help affiliates as there is more content about HostICan.

My next thought is improve the signup process for HostICan. Make it more secure, more reliable update the signup page...

You constantly have to improve what you have. My advise to you would be to try to show why HostICan is better then any other host, try to show why Plan A is better then Plan B. Some sorta comparison maybe? - That's just about what I'm going to be working on next.

[Scott]

The thing is, I know there is a way, outside of your typical hosting website, that allows for great hosting sales as a side job to what the core meaning of the project may be.

I've found several opportunities by browsing the web for off the wall (almost hosting related) stuff.

Maybe I should just hire a bum to hold a banner on freeway offramps. Haha

[lnxcode]

Outside of the hosting sales sites... many folks like review sites. That talk about top 10 hosts... why they rock... why their the best. I think you know what I mean.

I think the key to answering this problem is having a collection of sites like for example: if you have 4 sites, all selling hosting - have 4 websites!! and not 100 websites. The less websites you have, the more time you can spend on them improving and watching the results. Becuase if you have 100 sites, and all of them arn't doing so well, you'll be running your heard off.

[Scott]

The advantage of having 100 sites though is power in numbers. Link popularity is a key because the more sites you have, the more chances you have people finding your site and linking to it. So, although having 100 sites is difficult, it makes sense too.

I think the trick is, to find a niche that needs hosting and exploit it. Act like you care oh so much for the niche but have hosting mentions all over the place. You'll get keyword placements for the niche and when they visit, they find your hosting offers and hopefully buy.

My problem, which niche is the right niche for this?

[lnxcode]

Yes, you're right 100%. It's all about links, placements, backlinks, PR, reviews... everything comes from somewhere. So I think the key is not only rely on your own skill but get some folks to link your site into their directories, blogs, etc... you will slowly but surely get traction....

I think if you take things slow and not rush, you will do much better then someone rushing to get everything done. A good example, you shouldn't release something until you're ready or know you will have enough time / staff to support it.

We have tons of new features that we could release, new services, but we don't. The reason why we don't is because we don't feel comfortable that we will be able to support all of it. Which is a big reason why we still have no released windows (even though we get many requsts for it).