B2B web design is a multidisciplinary niche related to design, brand communication, and sales. The best B2B websites are designed with purpose, clearly communicate a brand story, and eventually sell well.
Recently though, another concept has been introduced due to digitalization: growth-driven web design! This is exciting because we are talking about a radically different approach from traditional web design.
In the traditional approach, web designers have been trying to fulfill executives’ wishes or please them. In growth-driven web design, designers are putting more emphasis on the target personas’ key drivers.
Doing that may not entertain the executives, but it’s a must-do in inbound marketing. Besides, having executive buy-in is easy when you can show them some concrete results. The best digital agencies can do just that!
Below is a perfect chart illustrating the differences between the two b2b web design approaches, keeping the customer journey in mind. Designing a B2B website with a growth mindset brings in 10% more revenue in 6 months. That’s huge!
B2B Web Design – Best Practices
At the beginning of this article, I called B2B web design a multidisciplinary niche! That might have sounded a bit like an overstatement, but it’s not.
This is a complex process, and the best B2B websites are built when non-technical & technical aspects work together in harmony. So let’s take a look at them!
1- Design Around the Business Objectives
When designing a B2B website, it’s crucial to understand the business and its objectives and carry on accordingly. Not the other way around.
According to KOmarketing research: a whopping 86% of visitors want to see information about its products/services once they land on a company’s homepage!
2- Address All Stages of Buyer’s Journey
Buyers go through a different set of actions and behaviors before they make a purchase. This is called the Buyer’s Journey in the inbound methodology. Typically, it includes these 4 stages: awareness, consideration, decision/action, promotion.
Often, in B2C, this journey is super-fast, whereas, in B2B, the buyer’s journey is longer since the investments are much bigger. That’s why it’s a best practice that a well designed B2B website welcomes all its prospects at different stages.
Here is a Neil Patel article on How to Optimize Your Site for Every Stage of the Buying Cycle.
3- Pay Attention to Simplicity, Performance, and Mobile-Friendliness
What Do 76% of Consumers Want From Your Website? According to HubSpot, people like websites that make it easy to find what they want! (Well, the HubSpot CMS is a great solution!)
Your site must have great navigation, maybe an on-site search, and even on-page SEO! Don’t forget to optimize your mobile site as many of the awareness stage activities initiate here.
Performance, especially site-load speed, is another vital element that I would like to highlight here. Your site must load in less than 3 seconds to avoid bounces.
This is often overlooked but guess what happens when your prospects bounce from your site? This isn’t good for your overall SEO, not to mention your hard-earned leads start checking up your competitors’ websites!
4- Create Content Around Solutions, Insights, or Research
As you might already know, once you get the technical aspects right, you need to showcase your business in the best way possible.
In B2B, that’s not always easy because the type of content you need is far more complex than the content you typically use in B2C. B2B content’s main goal is to show industry expertise.
Often, you are addressing other experts with specific business needs! Therefore, B2B content must present some technicality such as insights, research results, or a solution to an industry bottleneck.
This kind of content is hard to put together but well worth the investment! Involving different authorities in the content creation at a company level is a great strategy to nail B2B content marketing!
5- Test and Optimize Frequently
If you think that your website is the finished article, think again! Customers and their behavior are ever-evolving. That’s why what works this quarter may not work the next one.
The solution is having a constant testing mindset and close monitoring of website actions! At least, you need a google analytics measurement plan to check basic KPI’s.
Running audits at the end of each quarter and redesigning your B2B website accordingly is definitely a best practice to keep up with your industry trends and better address your B2B prospects’ needs!
Luckily, there are great tools out there, such as HotJar or Smartlook, to analyze your site in detail and get feedback from your web visitors!
Now that you have the great tips & tricks on B2B web design, go ahead and step up your game!
