Sunday, March 7, 2010

Finding Affordable Web Hosting

So you are an affiliate marketer. You have finally settled on what products you are actually going to sell. Now, how to find the affordable web hosting to promote your products?

If concepts such as "web hosting", or even  "affordable web hosting" are relatively alien to you (as it is for quite a lot of people), then this article is for you.

Affiliate marketing can be easy if you know how to utilize relevant help well. This relevant help includes, and is pretty much dominated by, web hosting. Web hosting come in as many shapes and sizes as affiliate marketers and their needs, which is reasonable, seeing as one way or another, an affiliate marketer really does have a specific web hosting that will cater to his or her needs perfectly.

Why would you need web hosting anyway?

Affiliate marketing is a profession, and in order to be competent enough for your prospects, you need to appear as professional as possible. You need your own domains to promote your products beautifully. If you have multiple affiliate marketing products, you need as many affiliate marketing sites. In order for these affiliate marketing sites to work as they should, you need all the help you can get (especially if you know little about these technical web stuff). So how do you determine the proper web hosting?

WHAT DO YOU REALLY NEED?

Web hosting, as said, comes in all shapes and sizes. They all vary in their services, domains (some web hosting options come with a free domain), bandwidth, disk space, site templates, features (cPanel, spam checkers, search engine optimization, and website analysis tools, among others), customer and technical support, and price. It can get pretty confusing, considering just how complex the entire web hosting thing could get. Here are some good steps to follow to determine the right web hosting solution for you.

1. The first thing that you have to do is to remain sane and calm. Relax. The more you fret, the greater the chances are that you'll settle for web hosting that cannot serve your needs.

2. The next thing that you have to do is list down your needs. Get them from reliable resources, such as fellow affiliate marketers, or other affiliate marketing sites. Also, look at your own affiliate marketing ventures, how many products do you have, and how much do you think you can afford to pay for your web hosting? Take some time doing your research. The more you speed things up, the easier it would be for you to miss out on details.

3. Now that you have your needs, find a web hosting solution that provides for them. A lot of web hosting now cater specially to affiliate marketing sites and needs, and you might want to check them out first. There are many affordable web hosting sites out there, and you need to keep your head straight to find the one that is perfect for you. Keep your list of needs with you all the time. You will have to take a good look at them over and over again before you find that one web hosting solution perfect for your future affiliate marketing site.

TO STAY OR NOT TO STAY?

You might find that listing your needs and matching those with a web hosting solution may not be enough. As a cliche might put it, there is no better teacher than experience. When looking for an affordable web hosting solution, you might find hundreds of sites that will cater to your needs. Since you only need one, choose the one you think best, but keep the contact information of those who came pretty close.

After a few months of sticking with your initial choice, however, and you are not as satisfied as you thought you would be, do not be afraid to move on. Anyway, transferring your web hosting from one to another is not as difficult as others say so. Your new web host might even be willing to help you with the move.

This is not the only case where you might find that you need to leave your current web host. You might discover that over the years, your changes have changed, and the web hosting that once satisfied you no longer does. Move on. And do so with a light heart. 

With a light heart in mind, one web hosting site that offers over 50 cheap web hosting solutions, VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting is Website Hosting Store. They my have the web hosting for your affiliate ventures that you need.

What are web hosting affiliate programs?

These are programs that sell web hosting services through members, called affiliates.  The market for website hosting is one of the fastest growing industries today, thanks to a robust Web economy and the continuous appearance of numerous websites, both corporate and personal.  

How do web hosting affiliate programs work?

They pretty much work in a similar manner to the average affiliate program with the exception that the products they are promoting are web hosting plans.  An affiliate earns when his referral purchases a plan from the program.

A good step for a web hosting affiliate would be to create a standalone site or blog that promotes web hosting and attract traffic to that site.  However, posting affiliate links consisting of banner ads and text links from an unrelated website could also work.

Who can benefit from web hosting affiliate programs?

From the customer's side, virtually anyone who has a website or is planning to build one will find web hosting useful.  From the affiliate's side, it varies greatly ñ beginner and experienced affiliates, internet marketers, webmasters, web consultants and bloggers will find this opportunity very promising.

How much commission can I expect from web hosting affiliate programs?

Web hosting affiliate programs offer some of the best wallet-friendly commissions in the industry.  Commission rates are great, ranging from around $50 to $100+ per successful business referral.  That's considerably larger than other commissions paid through affiliate programs selling more traditional products.

What's the success rate for affiliates in web hosting programs?

This is a very competitive segment of the industry, which means that once you sign up, you better have a good strategy to back you up.  If your idea of earning from these programs is posting an affiliate link on your website and leaving everything to chance, you won't earn much.  If you have a strong game plan, however, a web hosting affiliate program will work well to your advantage.

Some of the web hosting affiliate programs available today include:
1&1 Web Hosting

1&1 Web Hosting is the largest web host in the world, which shows in the success of our affiliates and of our affiliate program. Earn up to $300 per sale with almost 50 easy-to-sell products.

Just Host

Just Host's affiliate program gives you the ability to make up to $200 per sale and an additional $100 if you convert over 10 sales in a month. They offer two plans each available for 6, 12, 24 and 36 months, a sale qualifies as a subscription to any of these plans: 
     • Just Plan & Premium Semi-Annual – $100
     • Just Plan 12, 24 and 36 month - $100
     • Just Premium 12, 24 and 36 month – $120
     • Just Reseller – $200

LunarPages

If you have your own website, you can set up an affiliate link to LunarPages' web hosting program site. You'll earn $80 each time you refer a new customer for one of their budget web hosting plans, $95 for a spanish site and $95 for a TremenDesk sale.

Web.com

Web.com is another excellent web hosting affiliate program, offering $90 in commission on a cheap web hosting sale, $110 commission on a site builder sale and $115 on a shopping cart sale.

The previous examples of web hosting can all be found at many web hosting sites. One such site is Website Hosting Store. They offer over 50 web hosting solutions for cheap web hosting, VPS hosting and dedicated server hosting. This will give you the opportunity to compare several options all at once at one easy to use web site.