Dixson No. Profit margin is too low for the hassle if something goes wrong. They have an expectation for me to fix it at no cost. If I'm on a maintenance contract I charge an hourly fee to fix it. Way better use of my time. 💟👍🏽11
Chris » Dixson Couldn't agree more
Britton I would disagree with Clinton. Its nearly 100% profit once you have enough clients on there. My hosting renewals add up to a small wage and rarely does anything go wrong. Having said that it does depend on the client. If they have a lot of email addresses or the site is quite technical/will see a lot of traffic. Then I will usually ask them to setup their own account and send me the details to manage. Only because my reseller isn't scale-able. ArtRos Yes. Not only host but also buy their domain names with us. Because 23 years ago we started out as a web development and hosting company. We then offered SEO services . Our clients appreciate not having to deal with 3 different providers in order to have their website online and also rank on the first page. This also increases client fidelity. We have clients who have been with us since the beginning. 💟👍🏽5
Truslow 🎓 » ArtRos Lol I was going to tee off on this one until I read the whole thing. lol Normally I HATE it when a marketing company forces someone to register domains through them. There is nothing more time consuming, annoying, and frustrating than taking on a new client and having to spend countless hours and resources just trying to regain control of their domain name. In your case though – it's completely different. Domain selling and hosting is what you do, and the Search Engine Optimization (SEO)/Digital Marketing is a service you offer to those customers. So that's a bit of a different animal. It's cool so long as: 1) Their domains are in their name so they ultimately have control own it should they decide to move on.
Keith L Evans 🎓 Yes. I manage everything, but they own the domain. Easy and simple for the client. (It's like my own Private Blog Network (PBN) Whoops did I just say that. My bad. 👍🏽🤭22
Lobo » Keith L Evans But you don't get the benefit of cross linking clients if the are hosted on the same server. 🤭 Josh Damn people took it too seriously 😂 🤭 Keith L Evans 🎓 » Josh You never can tell 🤔 🤭 Mandal » Keith L Evans
Ammon Johns 🎓 Goodness no. Can you imagine asking a multinational corporation to abandon their multimillion dollar investment into their own servers to do some shared hosting on some muppet's hosting account? 😂
Josh » Ammon Johns Yes I can imagine. Chaos is a good thought for me, helps me relax Ammon Johns 🎓 » Josh Okay then imagine the email being written to the C-suite of p0rn-hu6: "I can only take on the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your network of sites if you let me rebuild your site(s) on Duda…" Josh » Ammon Johns I'd do one better "I can only take on SEO for your network of sites if you let me get pre-release access of the work of art you're doing and invite me with VIP access to the events." Ammon Johns 🎓 » Josh Don't ever do that to yourself, mate. Some years back I had a friend who while going through University always took a summer job at the Cadbury's factory (major UK chocolate producer). All the staff are allowed to eat chocolates on the job. On day 1 they eat quite a bit of chocolate. On day 2 they force themselves to eat quite a lot of chocolate because, you know, its a free perk and they don't want to waste it. As quickly as day 4 many of them are finding the very smell of chocolate makes them feel ill… She said that 'all you can eat' summer job helped keep her slim for the whole year. 😃 Adam J. Humphreys » Ammon Johns If they are on garbage hosting I am going to tell them to fix it regardless lol. Ammon Johns 🎓 » Adam J. Humphreys That goes without saying, as it becomes a performance issue that affects SEO. But ownership, or who gets the money, isn't. Adam J. Humphreys » Ammon Johns Ya I could care less about that. I just don't want calls about why are they down lol.
Holgate I used to but now I recommend a host if their current host isn't up to the job and will usually assist them in moving. That's one of my selling points, in that I'm fully transparent and everything is in their own name and possession, including domain registrar, backups and hosting… … Hosting hundreds of sites on my own host accounts, especially if I also had the domain names on registra was a massive hassle and distraction from my job in hand. They ended up treating me like an employee a lot of the times and expecting me to carry out jobs away from my remit… It's not worth doing usually, even if you charge extra for maintenance… … Then there's the daily email issues lol that I used to deal with 🤦♂️ Now clients create a support ticket on their host account if there's any issues which the host can fix 99% of the time before they need my help. Also imagine if you became long-term ill, retired or changed vocation. It would be a nightmare to sort out in one go if you hosted everything, especially if you had lots of clients. Truslow 🎓 We don't require it BUT… we do have a recommended "Managed Hosting Solution" and, unless the client has an in-house server administrator, we do (all but) insist on them using some sort of managed solution. We're a small team and I, being the only tech guy, can't be spending all my time with server optimization, maintenance, and all the headaches involved in managing that part of hosting. The $10 extra per month that you pay for a managed solution comes out FAR cheaper than I would cost you, plus it let's me focus on doing what I like and what I'm actually good at.
Ammon Johns 🎓 Causing trouble? 😃 Truslow 🎓 Yes. My favorite pastime is to stand before The Works and hurl wrenches at it.
Finney I do, yes. We use Kinsta and host lots of sites. I want to know we have the fastest hosting available so that I don't have to tell the clients their host is slow and hurts the user experience. Plus, we charge for hosting and with the number of sites we have, it adds a lot to the bottom line. Edit – didn't realize this was the SEO group, not agency owners. We built all the sites we host, so if you're just doing Search Engine Optimization (SEO), I can see some of the downfalls to hosting. Courtney Marie 🎓 We don't require it, but most do bc we explain the benefit of hosting with us. And..if a client doesn't pay…as in, owes you thousands of dollars, it's nice to have some sort of leverage. Steven 👑 I'd rather not. I once used to develop and host. I even hosted micro-site projects for Dominos and Fortune 500 via Rackspace. The amount of time I wasted updating the technology was ridiculous. These days, I send WP clients to partner devs who understand SEO, and that's the best setup you can have. I also send instructions to devs and hold them accountable for enterprise clients. If anyone needs an awesome dev setup with killer speed optimization, PM me. I will introduce you.
