At the beginning of the year the company I was working for decided to no longer offer website hosting and website design...which also terminated my job. An opportunity was presented and I have opened my own business, inheriting the clients from my former employer. www.williamswebsolutions.net was born in January. Any suggestions, sage advice, etc. for me??

Hi! what kind of suggestions are you looking for?

Mostly stuff people have learned by experience. For example, look out for when customers want to do this...

If you are going to run or running webhosting or any busines first ofall you should think about promotion. I think that is the main thing to be sucessful.

what recommendations do you have for promotion. Please keep in mind that we're starting out with a very low advertising budget.

There are many ways to promote your website online but in all honesty they are quite expensive. You could use Google Adwords for example, where you can set your own monthly or per-click limit. The only problem with this is if you set a low budget you will not be placed in a good ranking position.

I believe the best way to advertise is by "word of mouth" whether it be through forums like webhostdir or webhostingtalk. There are many ventures. You could try forums, google, overture etc and see how you get on with each one.

Hope that helps a little.

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Hi there!
Well it sounds like you have an advantage over most.
1. You actually worked for a the company that closed shop.
2. Inherited clients.
Hopefully since you were a former employee, you might have also gained some first hand knowledge from them.
Word of mouth is the best advertising I can think of.

are your former emplyees aware that you have inherited customers? and actually what was the way of getting such inheritance? however I agree that you have advantage among others since you have start with the number of the customers, if this is not a secret how many customers do you currently host? I mean customers, not web sites

ur site still need some graphic works. make it look more professional.
after than get it higher PR. then u will easy to convince people to use ur hosting/design service

Very Nice yes the best advertising is word of mouth. Anyone can do anything they set there mind to. If you wanna make it in the industry you gotta work hard but in the end you will be were you need to be. Like i said work hard and keep a positive atitude is alway # 1 Goal

I would suggest you write/devise a business plan. Write down goals you have for your company, costs (actual and expected), where you want to be in 5 years, etc. I found this to be the most important part of planning my business. Without it, it was like running with my eyes closed.

Since you have inherited the clients, provide them the best support you can (sounds like you can since you were a former employee ). Word of mouth is definitely the best advertisement.