Finding AI’s Place in Web Hosting  🔗 **Source:** [Finding AI’s Place in Web Hosting](https://share.snipd.com/episode/c6003acf-e7c8-4f2f-913c-ab68aade9c0a) ## Highlights - **Marketing Is About Explaining Clear Differentiation** - Matt Telfer says marketing at 20i focuses on explaining why customers should choose 20i over many hosts. - He manages communications and a team, leveraging industry experience to highlight product benefits and technical innovation. Transcript: Matt Telfer Yeah, sure. So I'm the marketing director here at 20i. Just from a personal perspective, I've been in the industry on and off for about 20 years now, give or take. So I got into hosting, let's say 20 years ago, with a company called 123 Reg. Then I bounced around a few different companies. Sometimes we're posting, sometimes not. But it's one of those industries that every time you think you've left, you kind of get dragged back in again. And it's probably one of the few industries where I've actually enjoyed the topic as much as marketing itself. It's an area that I've always found interesting. There's always something new going on. As we're seeing every few years, it feels like new technology is coming out, new ideas coming out. Just as an industry, not just ourselves, it feels like they're pushing the boundaries in terms of what's possible, which obviously then benefits the customers. So here at 20i, my role is to manage a team, communication, so just try to sell the benefits and explain to people why they should come and host a 20i over all the various of the web hosts, Really, if you get down to the nub of it. ([Time 0:01:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/75197ad5-b8ef-48c9-99ef-c9646599f7e2)) - **Search Still Dominates But AI Changes Clickthroughs** - Organic search and paid search (Google) remain 20i's primary traffic and sales drivers. - They saw informational blog traffic drop as Google AI answers queries, forcing content strategy changes that already improved results. Transcript: Matt Telfer Know i think yeah the old things still definitely works so from our perspective the two biggest drivers for traffic and then sales are organic search and um paid search which basically Means google um if you're being honest about it um so so yeah, PPC, organic search, that's where we invest most of our time. We are seeing a, the impact of AI, and we are adapting to that. So the best example of that is where we had that traditional approach of we have a blog that has informational content. So how do I do this? How do I do that? It's related to either direct related to hosting or even guides about running a business or even for freelancers and agencies. We have seen a drop-off in traffic to that informational content because Google is answering that in the AI overview. ([Time 0:06:16](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0e50ad76-8462-4750-8a38-635aef42d187)) - **Show Up In Person To Build Credibility** - Invest in human credibility: sponsor events, show up in person, and provide original insights or data to build trust. - Matt Telfer notes in-person meetups turn faceless hosting relationships into loyal customers. Transcript: Matt Telfer I think, yes, certainly when you can add, like I said, human interaction and credibility and original thought, I think those are three increasingly important things for brands. So if you can provide value, I think, yeah, probably providing original value, I think, is a key thing for a brand in the certain way things are going. So whether that's supporting a community or an event or providing original insights, so whether that's data or surveys, and then sharing that out with the community. I think they are going to become increasingly important. And I think also just being seen to be real, that's that human element. So when you sponsor an event and then you can then turn up and meet people, I think some of the best times we've had actually is when we go to an event in person and the mix of people coming Over asking who you are and just wanting to have a chat and then finding out more and then explaining what we're about but also when existing customers come over and just oh hey you know I'm with 20i and they might be for five years and this is the first time I've actually seen a human face because historically web hosting can be a very faceless industry. ([Time 0:09:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/406e6fef-bebc-4542-9159-1a3ea4a85c1f)) - **Own Your AI To Iterate Fast And Reduce Support Load** - 20i built its own AI assistant called 20 that goes beyond KB lookups to inspect code, write copy, and query account data. - Owning the AI lets 20i iterate quickly and reduce support load on routine queries. Transcript: Matt Telfer We haven't seen that to be fair but what we have so we've um this year we launched um our own AI system that we've called 20. And that has been fascinating to see it roll out and be used because there's always a little bit of apprehension when you launch something so fundamental and what you hope is going to Be a success and you hope it's going to achieve certain goals for customers. And then when you release it to the wild, is it then going to do that? Or our expectation is too high for it. But what we didn't want was just a simple bot, which basically just brings back answers from our knowledge base. Because we have a social knowledge base. Just putting an AI wrapper on it or giving it the little stars logo, which all the AI have, or making everything purple doesn't add any value. So what we wanted was a genuine AI tool which would, yeah, okay, it can answer your question, but also it can look at code and tell you where you've gone wrong. It can write copy for you if you want to. It can come with ideas and your domain names. It can actually query the data about your account so how much bandwidth did you use this month had that compared to last month or last year or two years ago things like that and it's been Really great to see the kind of feedback we've got on this on 20 um which has been super positive but it's even when as with anything that people have kind of hit dead ends because it's ours We've been able to fix it. We're not having to go to a third party and say, hey, these are our problems. And then waiting six months to a year for them to get around to it because we own it and we developed it. And the team that works on it sits in the same office as I do, as support, as the sales team, as sysadmin. It's great because then literally within hours, if it's a simple thing or days, if it's more complex, it's updated. ([Time 0:14:06](https://share.snipd.com/snip/50d45633-2e0a-4788-9b34-ac55f1869cbc)) - **Let AI Cover Routine Support And Escalate Complex Cases** - Use AI to handle common tickets and route complex cases to humans. - 20i uses AI as first-line to cover ~80% of frequent questions, then connects to humans for the remaining edge cases. Transcript: Matt Telfer The way we've done it is so the first the first attempt will be the ai and honestly more often not it gives the answer but then there's always like i said there's always those edge cases Where either the answer isn't quite right or it simply doesn't know the answer to it because it's an edge case. And then we'll always then connect them with a human and straight away they'll be on it. So, yeah, it just hopefully just covers that 80%, which has been asked many, many times. And then the human will deal with 20% with that kind of old age 20 rule where 20% which needs, it's a bit more complex and needs kind of human brain still to get involved. ([Time 0:17:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/cf75d48c-6132-4363-9f68-0ccf94648f27)) - **Explored AI Site Builders But Customers Prefer Control** - 20i discussed AI-driven site creation but feels current customers are intermediate users preferring code-level control. - They still explore AI tools for resellers but avoid promising near-term WYSIWYG automation. Transcript: Matt Telfer Yeah, we've definitely had conversations and it's certainly something we've explored. I think we don't feel it's quite there yet where our target audience are probably more advanced intermediate users. So people who at least know how to edit existing code or even code from a blank page or certainly how to use WordPress at a good level. So really, I'd say our audience are less likely to want those almost WYSIWYG style builder tools, the AI, like I say, it's more text-based than click, drag, and drop, but it's still kind Of the WYSIWYG mentality. So our resellers, so a big part of our business is reseller hosting. So we have customers who then sell hosting. Their end users, certainly, definitely a use case there depending on who their target audience is and and yeah we are looking at how we can potentially without making any promises because That customer's start thinking this is around around the corner we're only weeks away that definitely isn't the case but yes it's certainly something we're looking into because i Think it'd also be wrong for us not to. I think, again, I'm obviously marketing director 20i, so I'm not going to say otherwise, but one of the great things about 20i, and I have got experience working at other web hosts, I Can say this confidently, because the culture is to build things in-house and have proprietary technology and software. We are generally always looking for new opportunities to add more value. And we are very keen to stay at the forefront of technologies. Not from ego perspective, just simply because it helps our customers. And that honestly is the culture within 20i. So, yeah, it's there. It's definitely a conversation because I think it'd be remiss not to do that. ([Time 0:19:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/a1128fac-4a6a-40a8-ba3f-2fe3dd6f3b73)) - **Avoid Single Server Reseller Hosting For Clients** - Avoid single-server reseller hosting; it's prone to noisy neighbors and scalability problems. - Matt warns agencies to research platform architecture, not just price, because single-server resellers hit resource limits fast. Transcript: Matt Telfer I think that hosting your client's website just always feels like a no brainer to me. I think it's a chance to have recurring revenue. It's a chance to have a recurring relationship. So rather than being a one off project that then maybe they'll come back in two or three years time and think of you rather than going off and doing the research again or that team changes And they've even forgotten who the original agency was. I think keeping that connection, if nothing else, is so important for future work and, like I said, recurring revenue. Just going back to your point, though, that there are still plenty of examples of a certain type of resale hosting, which is still the same experience I think you had 20 years ago. So I think I don't want to kind of obviously kind of done too much on other web hosts, but I think single server based reseller hosting is really setting yourself for problems in the medium To long term, where you've got very, very specific and potentially very limiting resources available. And that licensing costs are going to go up a lot with that as well, but also going to hit a brick wall very fast in terms of what your customers can and can't do. And the whole noisy neighbor, which I think is a real thing on single server, where one site becomes a raising success, which then takes down everybody else as well because the whole Server can't cope with that one site. ([Time 0:23:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/0c77e11d-3754-4350-b094-dcd54dc9faf5)) - **Reseller Hosting Runs On 20i Owned Infrastructure** - 20i's reseller hosting runs on exclusively owned infrastructure including web platform, FTP, databases, and an in-house email platform. - They also offer Managed Cloud Servers that include AWS/Google Cloud alongside their 20i Cloud control layer. Transcript: Matt Telfer The mix, if at all, with your services? Well, for the reseller hosting, that is exclusively ours. So everything is ours from the web platform, FTP, databases, email platform, which have completely built our own email platform as well, which the resellers can then sell as well. We do have a product called Managed Cloud Servers, which does have, so you can buy AWS and Google Cloud and then our own 20i Cloud, which has our software layer on top in terms of the control Panel. ([Time 0:25:20](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f05284e6-83f4-4e9a-920a-b5b15ae3af9b)) - **WordPress Manager And Blueprints Speed Agency Workflows** - 20i provides a full WordPress manager with staging, cloning, and Blueprints to install common plugins across sites. - They redesign the UI from customer feedback and attribute most product features to direct user requests. Transcript: Matt Telfer To WordPress to make that experience better? What's the standout features for you? I think one of the big things that also helps differentiate us from some of the web posts is that we have a fully featured and functional WordPress manager built into MyFront UI. So it's an easy interface to manage multiple WordPress sites and the plugins, the themes, the users, and to then log into every single one. We're currently in the process of redesigning that based on customer feedback. In the coming weeks, months, depending on when this goes out, just a complete overhauled UI on that, which we're really, really excited about. Yeah, like you mentioned, staging, the cloning prints. So if you, and this is a great thing for resellers or certain agencies, that if you find that you're constantly adding the same plugins to every single website, whether it's a Yoast or A... Contact Form 7, things like that, all the usual suspects, find it manually every single time, just create it once, and essentially the Blueprint, you can then just one-click and it'll Just install all those for you, including any things that you use regularly as well. So I think, yeah, we're definitely really proud of our WordPress platform and the supporting features that come with it. And we've always got an eye on, again, what can we do more? What can we do next? What can we add? So I'd say that if any of our customers are listening to or watching this that feedback for me in my 20i is so key to what we do as a business i would say nine out of ten things that you see on 20i has come back from a customer asking for it or saying i i like this but i want more of it i don't like this can you do it differently i want to see this you don't do it at the moment. ([Time 0:29:00](https://share.snipd.com/snip/bdf793eb-8b8b-4459-b698-d4ac8d3033eb))