Joining the Web Hosting Industry. Become a Reseller of Web Hosting. By Staff Writer So you've come to the realization that each time you surf a website, there is a server delivering up the pages you're viewing. Now your mind shifts to thinking about whether moving those pages across the Internet creates real revenue. The short answer is yes. The web hosting industry generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year and employs thousands of people. Their around-the-clock focus is to make sure corporate and personal websites worldwide are up and running for web users. Web hosts make the web possible. Getting into the web hosting industry and becoming a web host is increasingly easy to do. There are several stages that most online entrepreneurs go through on their web-hosting path to success. The first stage, usually having the lowest capital investment, is reselling basic plans through an existing hosting company's reseller platform. Here a reseller subscribes to a hosting plan offered by a web host. These plans are generally in the range of $25-$100 per month depending on the features and capacity. Once you have bought this reseller plan, you can then subdivide the space you receive and start to host websites for businesses and individuals. Most reputable web hosts have some form of online control panel that makes managing your clients accounts easy. They can also refer you to a merchant account provider that will enable you to collect online credit card payments from your customers. Some top-quality providers of reseller hosting can be at the HostIndex.com Reseller Hosting Showcase - click here to open in a new window. The second stage is to progress into purchasing dedicated servers. In this environment, your web hosting business is not competing with other shared resellers on a hosting company's server. This being the case, the speed at which you can serve up your client's pages will increase. The basic idea at this second reseller level is to purchase a dedicated server and then load it with reseller software, such as Plesk or Ensim, which enable you to manage your hosting clients. Many vendors of dedicated servers now offer low-cost servers that can enable you to enter the web hosting business often for only about $100 a month. HostIndex.com has a list of reputable providers of dedicated servers who can help you become a web host. Click here to open our list of dedicated server hosts in a new window. / The third stage is to become a full-fledged Internet hosting company. This usually requires the largest investment of capital. Your company will either rent physical space in an existing Internet Data Center (and place your servers there) or build your own data center. HostIndex.com recommends most potential web hosts start at either stage one or two in order to reduce the business risk associated with a high-cost investment. At each stage, you must consider what you bring to the web hosting industry. There are thousands of hosts. As of early 2014, HostIndex.com listed more than 20,000 web-hosting companies worldwide. What is going to be your competitive edge? Will it be fast-response time, setting up a local office where clients can walk-in, or simply being good at online marketing? It's important not just to consider what reseller level you want to be at, but develop a full-fledged business plan. Advice on building a business plan can often be found at a local government office that promotes entrepreneurship. Also, if you are considering becoming a web host and buying a reseller plan to get started, you should follow the web hosting industry to become more familiar with it. One of the best online web sites for daily hosting news is WebHostNews.com - a free online resource. Click here to visit WebHostNews.com in a new window. HostIndex.com congratulates you on thinking about becoming your own web hosting company and entering the potentially lucrative world of online commerce. Read through our online web hosting articles and check out some of the companies listed in our various showcases. If you do, you'll become much more confident about web hosting and the likelihood of your success in this industry.