Today, more and more businesses are looking to either create a website or revamp their website now that a lot of the B2B purchase journey takes place online even before a sales rep has the chance to speak with a potential customer. It’s important to invest in your online presence to create credibility and seem more approachable.
The website has many roles from lead generation to customer support. In fact, all stages of the purchase journey, including the post-purchase stage, are present and important on the website which is why B2B website personalization has become more important in serving different customer segments.
Because of the many roles a website has, it’s important to make sure your website has at least these key elements that enable you to convert and support more customers.
Purpose and target audience
The website needs to have a purpose which in most B2B company cases is to generate new business and support customers. Key business questions such as:
- “Who is our target audience?”
- “What is our value proposition?”
- “What is our differentiating factor?”
- “What kind of brand we want to put out there?”
need to be answered before creating a high-performing website.
The most important website pages
A well-performing B2B website needs to have at least a pricing page, some product pages, a blog, and sometimes sign-in and sign-up pages. You need the pages to convince visitors that you have a reliable business that answers key questions the visitor has. If you are serving multiple customer segments, it’s important to use website personalization to create engaging and personalized content to each segment.
A pricing page is one of the most important pages of a B2B website. Buyers are looking to understand what features different paid tiers you provide and if you offer a free trial or freemium service. A lot of B2B buyers get frustrated if a pricing page doesn’t have actual pricing on it, so make sure yours does.
Your product pages give the customer an overview of your different features. If you have multiple products, then showcase those on separate pages on the website. Product pages are usually high-value and should count heavily if a visitor visits those pages.
A modern B2B website typically has a blog on it where buyers can find information and solutions to their problems. It’s also a good way to add more visibility to your target audience if you publish content that is highly relevant and SEO-friendly.
Some mandatory pages on a B2B website include a privacy policy and terms of service pages. These may not seem the most important to create if you’re just starting out but it’s good to lay the ground rules early on.
To create landing pages for your website, consider using a landing page builder tool if you don’t want to host your landing pages in the same place as the rest of your website.
Analytics and cookie management
Businesses in Europe and certain parts of the US are required to have proper cookie management. The laws require that the customer opt-in before they are being tracked on the website.
Once you have the visitor’s permission, you should gather analytics on what they clicked on the site. Analyzing what content they engaged with is equally important. You can analyze key actions such as visiting product pages from the analytics and optimize if necessary.
Lead generation forms
The target of any B2B company is to generate more leads from a website. Having lead generation forms in place ensures that interested customers can leave their information and get in touch with a salesperson. Take advantage of an AI form generator and enter prompts to create lead generation forms easily.
Lead generation forms are the most typical call-to-action (CTA) on a website although there can be multiple other CTAs. Other CTAs include newsletter signups and product signups.
Sign-up and sign-in buttons
This one is mostly for SaaS businesses, but you need to have clearly visible sign-up and sign-in buttons on the website. Visitors and customers need the buttons so that they can access your product easily. It’s sometimes crazy how you can’t find the sign-in button right after you just signed up for a product.
The buttons are additional call-to-actions on your site mixed with all the other call-to-actions. Make sure they stand out enough if that’s the action you want people to take.
Chatbots and Customer support
Modern website chats have multiple functions nowadays. They act as tools for Conversational Marketing, lead generation, and customer support. Sometimes a business has decided to only utilize one of those functions in which case they are leaving a lot of value on the table.
Chat bubbles can be used for marketing if they engage with a customer at the right time and place. One common example is to launch the chat bubble after a website visitor has spent 10 seconds on the pricing page. After launching the bubble it asks if the visitor needs any help in understanding the pricing.
Chat can also be used to generate leads by asking a visitor a few questions on what they are interested in. If the chat can then ask their email address for a follow-up, boom! A new lead was generated.
The support function is the original reason why chatbots were invented. There was a rising need to support customers online without them having to call you over the phone. Nowadays, chatbots can answer all sorts of support-related questions either automatically or with a human on the other side.
Case studies and testimonials
Case studies and testimonies affect your business’s credibility the most on the website. Potential customers want to see social proof that someone else has already bought your services or products.
A case study is a real study on how a customer implemented your solution and what they gained as a result. It includes details about the context of the customer, for example, if they are a medium-sized business from the finance industry. This is why it’s useful to have multiple case studies about different types of customers.
A customer testimonial is a simple quote from a customer. They are is willing to risk their own reputation to say that your product is trustworthy for others to buy. It’s usually a short quote with a full name and a picture of the customer. This customer also acts as a reference customer. Reference customers are needed if another potential customer wants to talk to reference clients before committing to buying your services.
Usability and accessibility
To rank well on Google, your website needs to pass certain usability and accessibility criteria. Usability means your website experience is good and elements can be used by visitors. Accessibility means adding functionality that accommodates visually and otherwise impaired people.
To maximize usability on a website, make sure all text and images are visible and nothing is left behind other elements due to poor HTML and CSS design. Avoid white fonts on white backgrounds and similar mistakes that prevent people from consuming your content.
For accessibility, it’s important that all images have alt-tags and all elements are navigation-friendly without a mouse. Accessibility standards develop all the time so you should always check out the latest recommendations.
Optimized SEO
Similarly to usability and accessibility, it’s important to optimize your website for SEO in order to rank well on Google. This can be broken down into several other factors such as page load speed, search-friendly keywords, mobile-friendliness, and in general avoiding bad SEO practices such as keyword stuffing. To get the best results, you can hire B2B SEO services.
Conclusion
There are several things that need to be accounted for on a B2B website for it to perform well in the demanding online landscape today. First and foremost it pays to have a purpose and a target audience in mind who the website is meant for.
Secondly, it’s important to have your key pages in place so the customers to find relevant information for them. Similarly, a customer support channel and lead generation forms are important channels for your customers to get in touch with you when they need to.
Finally, it’s important to optimize your website for SEO, including taking care of usability and accessibility and then keep on improving your results through analytics.
