How to Start a Mini Web-Hosting Business

First, I should mention that you'll do best if you offer to set up their blog and provide a certain amount of support. Some people aren't as turned off by the cost of hosting as they are by their fear of new technologies or just by not having time.

Here are the steps to success:

1. Do your research.

Find a good hosting service which allows you to manage multiple domains from one account for one price. Make sure it allows you a lot of storage space, since you'll be dividing this up between customers. Once you know the space available, you can figure out how many people your single account can support--max. Don't go over that, be responsible.

2. Figure out what you're going to charge.

My Dreamhost account cost $22.40 for the first year, with the coupon, including one free domain. Yay! So you shouldn't charge more than that for the first year, otherwise they won't want to go with you.

Charge, say, $15, which includes domain registration and support for setup. But make sure they buy a 2-year package with you. Charge them, perhaps, $35 per year from then on (including domain reregistration). It comes out to about $2.95 per month, which is better than a lot of hosting solutions and has some personal support thrown in. (If you're not doing Dreamhost with the coupon, then charge $35 for the first year too.)

Since you're requiring a 2-year minimum contract, have a prorated refund policy-it's only fair.

3. Market it to regular bloggers.

You're not looking for super bloggers here (too much space used up)-just regular people who want to have their own site but don't know much about managing it and could use someone to work with them on setup and such. There are a lot of them out there, it's your job to convince them that you're offering what they need.

Just post about it on your blog, mention it to people you've heard wishing they had their own sites, ask some friends to mention it on their blogs.