Addressing what it refers to as a lack of ?high-impact? technology services designed for small businesses, web hosting provider Verio has bundled its web hosting services with a consulting-oriented package of website design, content creation, marketing and search engine optimization services, with the VerioVelocity service it announced on Wednesday.
Citing confusion among small businesses looking to develop their web presences, and a potentially-overwhelming number of options at every stage of creating and marketing a website for their business, along with hefty requirements on time and financial investment, Verio is attempting to appeal to those small businesses with a package of tools, services and hands-on consulting that it believes will remove a lot of guesswork and shorten the learning curve for small businesses looking to establish an online presence.
The company says the service is built on the Verio cloud hosting service, which the company introduced in April of this year, and which is priced at about $25 per month in its simplest configuration.
The new service touches on a couple of key trends in the mass-market hosting space. One is the drive to design solutions for small business customers, that large and still-fairly-untapped market of potential customers that have a pretty broad range of IT needs and are willing to spend a decent amount of money on services if they can see the value. It also addresses that next step that is the marketing of a website once it is online (the demand that has given rise to add-on search marketing services like Attracta).
SEO and marketing services are hardly new add-ons to a hosting package, and DIY website creators and outsourced development are more or less industry standard offerings. But the hands-on, consultative aspect of the VerioVelocity service is a far less common site in the hosting business, where services, no matter what they are, are most frequently hands-off.
At a monthly cost of $159 ? whereas its shared hosting plans range from $10 to $30 per month ? for Verio the new offerings mean a pretty significant bump to the revenue generated by a given customer, without requiring the up-selling of each individual feature and service. The challenge will be convincing small businesses that Verio has created a bundle that delivers precisely what they need from their online presence.
Specifically, the package includes ?individualized consulting? to determine the customer?s needs, development of a five-page website, along with logo design and copywriting services, the hosting itself, email hosting, chat and video conferencing services,? search engine optimization, submission to Google Maps, Google Places and other directories, a stats package and a mobile website. On its VerioVelocity micro-site, Verio estimates the total cost of those services, purchased individually, at almost $2,500.
?With well over half of small businesses looking to grow revenue and a third wanting to reduce costs and improve efficiencies, there is a clear deficit in delivering cost-effective , high-impact? technologies for the small business? market ,? says Rob Howard, vice president of global sales and marketing for Verio, quoted in the press release. ?The introduction of VerioVelocity quickly changes the small business landscape.?
Talk back: Do you think the VerioVelocity service is something that will resonate with small business hosting customers? Have you made any efforts to bundle design and marketing services like these with your hosting services? Do you have any hands-on, consultative services of this sort available to your customers? Let us know in the comments.
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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