OVER THE LAST three years, how web design is delivered to end customers has evolved. Increasingly, clients are looking to the web design community to provide them with a complete and comprehensive package. The hosting component has become central to the design package that has opened up a new and potentially lucrative revenue stream that could make a healthy addition to every designer’s bottom line.

Even a quick search of the net for hosting services will reveal a market that is saturated, which has driven prices down. Dedicated server platforms are now affordable by even the smallest enterprise. The market itself continues to grow. It’s expected that by 2009, small businesses in the US alone will spend in excess of $7 billion on web hosting, according to IDC. What this means for the humble web designer is that they can now offer a complete service to their clients to set up their site, but more importantly, can also handle the ongoing site maintenance, including the hosting module.

As a business opportunity, reselling white-label site hosting as part of your design business makes perfect sense. With several platforms that have been streamlined and simplified as the hosting market itself has matured, this has had a knock-on effect for web designers who can effortlessly add the server component to their design packages with ease. The scalability of today’s hosting services is also a great asset to have available when reselling hosting space as part of a design pitch.

Chris Lofts, an independent eCommerce consultant says, “There are two forces at work that are shifting the market in favour of full-service agencies. The first is market maturity. As online becomes essential for business, rather than just nice to have, new buyers in the market want to talk about a complete solution. Gone are the days when buyers were prepared to buy all the bits from different suppliers and assemble them in the garage. Today’s buyer has a set of business objectives that need to be met, and he’s not terribly interested in the individual components that are going to solve his problems.

The second is the increasing role online plays in a business’s overall operations. This means that the support and operations of the website needs to come from a one-stop shop. If there’s a problem with the website, or if enhancements are required, businesses can’t afford to be rushing from pillar to post trying to find the answers. One phone call should set the wheels in motion, and the next contact should be the web supplier telling the customer that his issues have been dealt with.”

The reseller packages that are now available from a number of hosting services can be sold in their own right. Many web design agencies are simply adding web hosting to their available services as a cross-selling opportunity. This move enables them to lever their existing, often long-standing, customer relationships “Clients like a named point of contact that they can call,” said David Foreman, director, Toast Design. “Our offering to clients is the complete package – we are a reseller of sorts, but deal with all client issues directly as our offering is enhanced by providing clients with a full service. If they pay us to design and build a complex site, not offering hosting and email as part of that service can worry them – it’s integral to the project.”

One of the clear advantages of the reseller market for web designers is that even the micro design business can punch well above their weight. Also, as these smaller businesses tend to service more niche markets than larger design agencies, reseller packages are a superb way of bolstering the niche market you may be working within. If your site designs are within many niche markets, the addition of hosting to your service package can have a massive positive impact on not just your business’s profitability, it also enables your business to further develop these niche markets.

Hosting companies have been quick to see how tailoring their services to the requirements of the web design community could vastly improve their hosting business via the reselling channel. They have listened to the reseller community and developed maintenance tools to suit their customers’ requirements. It’s now completely feasible to offer every service from initial domain registration, through to add-on services like email, site analytics and search engine optimisation – all handled by you via the host’s interface.

Mark Jeffries, CTO Fasthosts Internet says, “While in the early years service levels could prove a headache for resellers, today’s large white label hosting providers now serve hundreds of thousands of customers. They are equipped with the infrastructure to provide quality products and excellent uptime, connectivity and technical support. The provider handles all the back-end processes and customer control panels but the reseller retains all customer liaisons themselves. Of course, the standard of a reseller’s service will be largely dependent on the hosting vendor with whom you partner. Always select a large reputable host with the infrastructure, technical resources and financial stability needed to provide a high-quality service. It is also important to choose a web host partner that has the R&D resource to develop new features and products you can offer your customers in the future.”

The web design market has radically changed, particularly over the last three years. Design as an isolated activity is now rare. Clients are looking to include the latest technologies on the sites they commission, but they are also looking to buy completely integrated services. Increasingly, only those designers and design agencies that can offer the full service package will be able to develop and maintain a sustainable business in the future. For designers, the move to more software as a service platform should be viewed as simply an evolution of their market. The reseller market is not a necessary evil that designers are being forced to add to their businesses; it should be viewed as a business opportunity that should not be missed by any savvy designer or agency.

When choosing a hosting service to partner with, use all the due care you would use when buying any critical service for your business. Look for hosts with a strong track record and the infrastructure to support the sites you’ll be reselling. Any problems and your clients will look to you for solutions – not the host. Toast Design’s David Foreman said, “The company we buy our space from (Skymarket) are superb in this department. If you’re reselling, you need to know that the support is there if an issue arises that you can’t resolve. If you don’t get a high level of support, issues can’t be resolved quickly and you’ll lose clients. They will see you as the prime contact, so if your suppliers let you down, it can leave you in a difficult position.”

Fasthosts’ Mark Jeffries concluded by saying, “There are very compelling reasons why reseller hosting can be an attractive bet for web designers. Today, a full range of white-label web solutions such as domain names, hosting, email, eCommerce and unlimited broadband packages are offered at low trade prices, ready to be rebranded as your own and sold to your customer base. By combining web design with hosting, designers can increase their revenues and also offer a more complete solution to their clients. There is much scope to develop your own hosting brand in line with your corporate identity. Agencies can thus provide own-branded packages of tailored design, web development and hosting to their niche markets.”

Being able to not only deliver the latest website design, but also hosting and any additional services that your clients require, offers a great commercial advantage over your business’s competitors. Fullservice web design is fast becoming the norm. Take a look at hosting reselling. It could offer your business a completely new market sector that could deliver a great profit margin for very little cost.