As a hosted desktop reseller, you need to know that all of your digital platforms are doing their job. This includes your social media accounts, LinkedIn profile, blog, email campaigns, and most of all your website. Optimising your website on a regular basis is crucial if you want potential customers to find you and established leads to make the transition from mild interest to a regular subscription, so here are some tips on ensuring that yours is doing its job 24/7.
Your UVP, or unique value proposition, is what sets you apart from your competitors. There are countless other suppliers of hosted desktops on the market and many people can be quite impatient when researching a product. Your website needs to immediately convey the specific value of a GoCloud hosted desktop, such as its high levels of security, guaranteed speed, excellent flexibility, and of course the cost-effective nature that could save a business of any size significant overheads on a monthly basis.
Treat your website as if you had never heard of your brand before and were visiting for the first time – does it efficiently explain what hosted desktops are and how they benefit companies? If not, it’s time to reinvigorate your copy and get it up to scratch, as your website should act as an eloquent and persuasive digital salesperson that never sleeps.
Every webpage has built-in areas for meta descriptions and title tags, but whether yours are optimised is down to you. Both the title and descriptions should be keyword-rich so that search engines recognise your site’s relevance when someone is searching for “hosted desktops” or “virtual desktops”. The easiest way to look at it is that whilst the main copy thoroughly explains the product to the human user, the meta information is what guides Google to deliver your website higher up in search results in the first place.
Each page’s meta descriptions and tags also need to be unique, with the main keyword placed early on. For instance, the homepage’s meta title could be “Hosted desktops for SMEs”. This also helps the person conducting the search, as the title will come up in their results and be the first thing they see. The meta description for the page will then go a little more in-depth, such as GoCloud’s own that says “UK's leading dedicated Hosted Desktop provider to cloud resellers – Hosted Desktop pricing from £23. Join the GoCloud Partner Programme for FREE.”
Your web hosting service will provide advice about the recommended length for both title and descriptions, with many also including SEO tools that allow you to make the most of your meta. However, as a rule of thumb, meta titles are usually 70 characters or less (including spaces) and descriptions are up to 150 characters. They also need to be well-written so that the individual who comes across your website through a search will instantly understand what to expect if they click through to it.
A strong, clear and engaging CTA (call to action) should be present on every single webpage. Usually with hosted desktop resellers this will be an invitation to get in touch one way or another, yet there are others that you can use throughout your website. For instance, our site makes it clear that visitors can find out more about becoming a GoCloud Partner, plus we have a few resources that can be downloaded for free: The Cloud Opportunity, Delight Your Customers and Double Your Turnover.
Depending on the type of marketing activity you have in place, your call to action could also be to watch a video, visit your social media platforms, sign up to an e-newsletter, read a particular blog post, or anything else that will help your visitors to get a better feel for your unique offering. On top of this, a CTA doesn’t just have to be text, it could be a button, an animation, or another visual prompt that grabs attention and encourages further exploration.
You should also think about the wording, as the way that people use websites has changed enormously over the years. Rather than “Sign up”, you could perhaps try “Receive expert insight”, and “Watch our video” could be replaced with “Take a virtual tour”. You know your brand better than anyone, so be creative and ensure that every element of your website matches your voice and style.
Once the web visitor has an idea of how your hosted desktops can take their business to the next level, it’s time for them to get in touch. You should always include a phone number if possible, although with most people preferring email communication over a call, a short sign up form is the best way to simplify the process.
Take a look at our page on how to become a partner – it briefly reminds the visitor of how we work and asks for very basic information, making it easy for even the busiest IT reseller to find time to reach out to us.
The vast majority of businesses use social media, although not necessarily to its full potential. Whilst Facebook is still very powerful, especially when you invest in a few targeted ads, Twitter is excellent for starting conversations and Instagram is becoming more popular with companies than ever before. LinkedIn is also key, as you should use both your personal profile and company page to share updates, insight and content (don’t forget to tag your company page when posting to your personal feed so that followers can find it quickly).
You could also integrate your social media with your website to great effect by adding a plug-in, which displays the most recent social updates on the site. This is a call to action in itself, as many visitors will follow your channels right there and then, increasing your reach and resulting in more people seeing future announcements.
When posting to your company’s social media channels, try to include some variety – posting a promotional message every day can become tedious, leading to a lack of engagement and some people unfollowing. By talking about other topics and sharing other content in between sales messages, such as industry news, testimonials, site visits, CSR activity and staff celebrations, you’ll naturally drive more visitors to your website. Blog posts can come in very handy here, as a snippet on social media with a CTA to read more on your site can increase web traffic exponentially.
Due to the ever-changing nature of both web design and search algorithms, it doesn’t take long for a website to become fusty and clunky. You should give your site a health check and look into SEO reports every few months, and between them it’s worth double-checking that everything looks and reads the way it should.
There’s nothing worse than spotting a silly typo, mistake or out of date information that’s been on your website for ages, which will have been seen by countless visitors, so treat your website with the respect it deserves and watch your revenue grow in response.
Want to know more? Download our e-book to discover how you can take advantage of the UK’s need for hosted desktops.