Published on November 25, 2014
When a visitor first lands at your website, what do they do? Which pages do they view and interact with? Where do these pages lead them? How many clicks will it take for them to reach your first sales-optimized landing page?
If you can’t answer the above questions, your website is likely in need of either a redesign or some serious optimization. Many B2B companies ignore the essential principles of web design, assuming that content alone is the best marketing tool.
The reality, however, is that following best practices for web design and usability will not just make your website easier for visitors to navigate; it will also make it significantly more profitable.
In this blog post, we’ll share 10 design, usability and conversion best practices for your B2B website. Think of this as a checklist – after you read each best practice, review your website and see if it needs to be optimized.
Every page on your website should have a clear goal. This goal could be to inform the visitor about a product, provide them with contact information or generate a conversion. Check that all of your pages have a clear, easily identifiable goal.
It can be tempting to optimize your website for SEO by using keywords heavily in your content. While some degree of focus on SEO is certainly a good thing, it’s not good web etiquette to overdo keyword optimization if it affects readability.
Not all pages on your website will be focused on sales. However, all pages that are informational should link to sales-driven pages. Make sure there’s a call to action linking every informational page on your website to a sales-focused landing page.
Not all of your customers will want to place orders using your website. Having an email address or support phone number that’s easily visible will allow customers who want to learn more about your product to get in touch.
Many B2B websites, particularly those designed several years ago, have designs that are overly busy and difficult to navigate. Your website’s design should be simple and clean without distracting on-page elements that could confuse users.
Logos and testimonials are both fantastic tools for improving conversions. If you’re interested in increasing your conversion rate and earning more money from every visitor to your website, consider including persuasive testimonials.
Every lead capture form on your website – from email opt-in forms to sales forms – should only be as complex as it needs to be. Avoid including unnecessary fields that complicate the buying process, unless the data is absolutely essential,
All of your calls to action – from buying buttons to links to phone numbers – should be immediately identifiable and obvious to visitors. Consider using a contrast color to make your call to action stand out and attract the attention of users.
Even in the B2B sector, a huge amount of traffic is mobile. Optimizing your website for mobile opens you up to a massive audience that’s very unlikely to buy or send a sales-related email from a desktop-only website.
If you’re not tracking your conversion funnel, you’re never going to be able to make informed tweaks to your online marketing process. Make sure your website has an analytics platform linked and carefully monitor the data your website gathers.
Not every website is perfectly optimized and up to date, and violating one or two of the best practices listed above is understandable. However, if your website follows very few of the above best practices, it could be a good time for a redesign.
