When it comes to web hosting you can serve everybody you see, or you might look into hosting just a few. A niche is a special area of demand for a product or service. As far as the web goes, that could be web sites based around a certain topic, style or idea.
For an example, webhostingshow.com is a podcast – that is a niche. Some web hosts out there are doing specialized hosting just for people who podcast.
The premise of this argument can be understood with one simple idea, they need hosting too. No matter what the niche is out there; any group of people would be happy to have a web host that looks out for just their needs.
Focus on the Features
You want to offer your customers a few special perks they will not get by going elsewhere. These could be:
- More Expertise in that Area of Interest – Going back to the podcast metaphor, let us say I started up a web hosting company just for podcasters. The perk here is that I have done podcasting before, so I know a thing or two to help you with your podcast hosting.
- Tools to Help that Specific Niche Topic – You could offer special tools that would help that specific type of niche web site grow and prosper even more. An example of that would be if you are a blog host, and you distribute free blogging software to your clients to make publishing on the web easier.
- Special Deals on Services that Might Be Needed More – Some web sites use more of one resource than others do. If you were running a photo gallery hosting service, you could give that niche more disk space so they have plenty of room to store all of their photos.
All you have to do is ask yourself, what I can do for them to make their lives easier?
Not a Web Host? Grab a Reseller Hosting Account!
For those who are not web hosts, but would like to host for a specific niche of people a reseller account might be a good way to start. Having a reseller hosting plan is already like running your own mini web hosting company. So that proves the point that this is something anybody can do – not just your high dollar hosting companies.
The last benifit of hosting to please the niche markets out there is that you will also be building a community of like-minded web sites. Encourage your customers or clients to talk to one another, share ideas and give each other help and feedback. The social aspect to the Web is the hot topic right now, and you can build a hotspot of your very own.
