An effective B2B website is the best type of introduction your business can have.
Meetings, business cards, catalog mailings, and trade fairs have taken a back seat in the modern business world. Your corporate website is the first impression of your brand and the core of your marketing strategy.
The B2B customer has changed a lot in recent years, and their buying process has been digitized: 61% of B2B Buyer Journeys start with an Internet search, and your buyer persona is already 70% of the way through their decision-making process before they fill in any form or talk to a sales representative of your company.
So if you sell products or services to other companies, your website must project an impeccable professional first impression – don’t lose leads right at the start of the funnel! Here are 10 tips to turn your website into your company’s best sales channel.
1. Include your main value proposition on the home page
Your website’s home page is the page that receives the most visits and should be able to express the value of your business at a glance.
Start your homepage with a high-quality static image. Avoid carousels of very fashionable yet misleading images. You only have 8 seconds to capture the user’s attention.
To reach the best results, try to choose a picture that defines your business without the need for words and add a phrase with your primary keyword that answers the question: “How can my business help your business?”. For example, if you run an essay writing service, try to come up with a picture that will answer this question: a relieved student with an excellent mark can be a nice choice.
2. Page loading time is everything
If you want your website to appear at the top of the search engine rankings, you should know that the Google algorithm values browsing speed above everything else.
You must get your B2B website to load completely in less than 4 seconds. To find out the loading speed of your web page, you can check PageSpeed Insights. This free Google tool for developers will also give you a lot of information about what’s going wrong.
Choose quality hosting to boost your loading speed, compress the size of all images and avoid unnecessary plugins.
3. Responsive design is valued highly.
Another essential factor in obtaining a good SEO positioning is that your website is adapted to navigation from any device.
What’s more, since 2018, Google’s algorithm has valued the mobile version of websites above all else. This is because people are already browsing more from smartphones than from computers.
However, this is one of the significant exceptions on a B2B website. If you check your Analytics reports, you will probably find that most of your visitors are browsing from PCs or laptops. This is normal because they are professional users looking for suppliers for their company.
In any case, your website should have a responsive design and work well from any device. But if your web page is more B2B-oriented, focusing on a great user experience from desktop or laptop computers is the best tactic.
4. Create lead magnets to broaden your database
It sounds complicated at first, but it is a very simple and effective inbound marketing technique. It is based on offering visitors to your website valuable content in exchange for their contact details. For example, your user can download a free guide in exchange for their email address.
The objective is to increase your database of potential customers, establish the first contact and be able to “warm up the sale” with automated emails. It is one of the best ways to convert web visitors into leads with very little budget.
This strategy is best implemented in a B2B company. Create a simple lead magnet to use it: for example, a catalog download or a product guide.
5. Avoid creating long contact forms
Many studies have concluded that the more fields your contact form has, the fewer people will fill it out. This, which seems very obvious, is often forgotten on B2B websites, where you find forms with up to 10 fields.
Think about the minimum information you need to start the relationship with your potential customer, and don’t complicate the first contact. You will have time to get to know each other.
First Name, Last Name, Company Name, Email, and probably the telephone number are more than enough for your contact form. You will surely be able to collect the rest of the information, like the size of their company, position, location, etc., when you make the first contact.
6. Include social proof to awaken confidence in your buyers
The biggest fear of a professional buyer is to make a wrong decision that will cause damage to your company.
Your B2B website must generate TRUST in the first place. Social proof is the best way to do this, and by this, we mean a section with logos of companies that have already trusted you, testimonials from satisfied customers, success stories, or awards.
Ask your customers for permission to use their brand logos, and don’t be shy to ask for first-person testimonials. Your best customers will always be happy to help you; the only thing you need is to reach out to them and ask.
7. Create a blog with expert articles
One of the must-have sections on any B2B website is a blog. Many companies already have blogs, but not how they should be kept.
Forget about publishing news about your new product, the trade fair you are going to or your new facilities. Stop talking about yourself. You should focus on creating valuable content for your ideal customers. This will allow you to position yourself as an expert in the sector and benefit your SEO strategy.
Your blog should have 0% commercial content to generate interest in your customers. Think about what topics interest your buyer and take the opportunity to talk about particular issues that have no place in your web sections.
8. Your images should be your own and of high quality
If your company sells to other companies, we must insist on the need for your website to transmit trust. And this is largely achieved thanks to the images.
50% of the success of a B2B website lies in having quality images. This is why you should avoid the classic stock image banks and invest in a professional photoshoot that shows your facilities, equipment, and services.
Include portraits of your team in the About Us section. Putting faces to the people you talk to creates a great connection. You can also use them for LinkedIn and email signatures.
9. Product benefits are more important than features
The biggest mistake B2B businesses make when selling their products is to focus on features instead of benefits. Your customer doesn’t care about your service or product. The only thing that matters to them is how it will help their company.
Here’s an example: do you use toothpaste because it contains hydrogen peroxide or because you want whiter teeth? You need to transform every boring technical feature of your product into an exciting commercial hook that incites action.
This does not mean that you should fully relinquish the features: they are also important to argue why your product achieves that goal. Just leave them for later. Learn how to turn features into benefits, and you’ll be unstoppable.
10. Personalize your CTAs
Calls To Action or CTAs are all those buttons with “Submit Form,” “Contact,” or “Subscribe” links your website includes.
You should think about what exact action you want the user to take on each website page and include a button with that specific message. Do you want them to subscribe to your blog, submit a contact form, request a free call, share your content on their social networks? Tell them clearly and make it easy. Good CTAs will boost the effectiveness of your B2B website.
Make sure to design large buttons with rounded edges and bright colors that contrast with your website. The text should be short and start with a verb that encourages action. For example, “I want more information” is better than just “More information.”
We hope these ten tips have inspired you to create a B2B website that captures leads on autopilot.