Well, I guess their offer is not that much really. As I wrote before, the main reason I got into Bluehost is because they offer easy WP installation tool. And on rare occasion when I did need tech support (like when I found that my site was not loading, and once I messed up with a new plugin upload and panicked), there is a human on the phone. That helps.

Yeah, I think you probably want to emphasize the ease and security of moving if you expect people to move to your service. Again, moving is scary.

Akemi

Akemi “spiritual entrepreneur” - Yes to Me’s last blog post..Gratitude For Time For Myself , Gratitude Friday, Edition 17

lol I love the BxxxHost reference heheh. I’m sure you’re referring to BlueHost, it’s ok, we don’t fear our competition, we welcome it.

Our primary target for the direction we’re headed will be for people who want to start a blog but haven’t just yet. Secondary target market would be the individuals who own free accounts and know they need to move to a paid service. Although we would always welcome people to transfer from hosts like BlueHost and Yahoo!, I feel it would be too difficult to attract users who are already situated and happy where they are.

If someone is unhappy with their web host, then they will go looking and that’s when we want them to find us.

What I have noticed through my stats is that most people who come to my blog are in fact not bloggers, they are people who have typed a question in Google and have arrived at one of my articles. Typically though, most people who comment are bloggers.

I like your point about emphasizing “easy of moving”. I will make sure to highlight that. Thank you for your insights

One question I do have for you, though if you don’t mind. When you mentioned

They have made this technically challenged woman run two fairly successful websites

How have they helped you other than providing web hosting? I’m just curious what their strategy is. Thanks.

@ Cath - I’m not sure it’s worth investing too much time & money in trying to convince people who are happy with their service that they need to switch to us. The new direction will be targeted at newbies and those who need to switch from free to paid. I doubt people who have been blogging for awhile and already know how to upload a plugin, upload a theme, post in WordPress, etc. will find many of the tutorials and other benefits we may offer enticing.

I think those people (people happy with their current provider) would really only consider moving if the price was extraordinary. What do you think?

Now if they are unhappy with their current service provider, that’s a different story. What made them unhappy and how can we solve this problem for them?

What Akemi is saying is interesting. You need to make it easier for folk who aren’t particularly unhappy to move. I wonder if you could actually do the whole move for them - moving their blog from their original host. Rather than adding it as an additional service, you could charge slightly more and include it in the service.

Cath Lawson’s last blog post..Is Your Business On The Brink Of Disaster?