Talking about best practices for B2B web design and development is a big topic. You can talk about SEO, page speed, design trends, usability testing, scalability, and so much more.
However, in this blog, let’s take a few steps back and take a high-level look at your upcoming B2B website design project.
Think about your users
Sounds pretty basic, right? You’d be surprised. Sometimes a marketing director can (justifiably) get so caught up in what the CEO would like to see on the B2B website that he or she forgets to think about what users need.
But how do you know what users want? There are a lot of tools on the market that can help.
A big one is Google Analytics. You can use Google Analytics to see which pages on your website get the most traffic. You can connect it to Google Search Console and see what users were searching for when your site showed up. If you’re in the middle of a B2B website redesign, looking at the most common screen resolutions and browsers your users are running is very helpful during testing.
Running A/B tests is another great way to get to know your users. While Google Optimize is going away in September 2023, there are other options like Optimizely and VWO. If you have a theory that your users might respond better to a red call-to-action button than a blue one, you can use A/B testing to verify your hunch.
On a more conceptual level, try to put yourself in your users’ shoes. What do they need to know? At a bare minimum, they need to know what you offer and what makes you stand out from competitors. They want to know if you’re a reliable business. They want to know how you can make their lives easier.
Read more: FAQ on B2B website design.
Think about the future
When launching a new B2B website, you need to think about the content you have now, but also the content you’ll have in the future. Do you have a blog right now? If you don’t, you might want to consider including it in the scope of your website redesign. It’s much easier to take an existing blog page out of draft mode than it is to bring in a developer later on to add one.
Do you anticipate having to add any big sections of content to the site within the next year? Is R&D working on a new product? If so, mention that to your B2B website design agency. Some designs and website builds are more flexible than others. The last thing you want is to be boxed into displaying only 3 products when a new one is released.
Read more: 5 things that make a B2B web design look outdated.
Think about marketing
If you’re a marketing director, that means thinking about yourself! What do you need the most? Leads? Do you need to qualify those leads? Complex drip campaigns aren’t necessary to qualify in some circumstances.
For example, let’s say your services start at $100,000. You could include a budget dropdown on your contact form asking about the budget with the minimum amount being $100,000. While some people who don’t have that money will still fill out the form, it will definitely weed out others, saving you time.
What kind of information would make your job easier?
Do you need to know where your users are located?
Do you know if a user clicked on an ad or came to your site through a search engine?
Discuss your blind spots with your web design agency and see what they can do to help you see.
Is your B2B web design effective? Here’s how to tell.
Think about sales
Marketing is all about bringing in leads, who turn into customers and generate revenue.
What happens to the leads after you bring them in? Is there anything you can do to help sales?
Maybe give them more context about what a user has looked at.
If they’re using a CRM, does it make sense to integrate the forms with the CRM?
Or maybe it would be helpful to break down the leads by salesperson—every lead in the western US goes to one person and every lead from the eastern US goes to another one.
Read more: What should my B2B website have?
Redesigning a B2B website is a big task. Even with the right agency, there are a lot of decisions to make. Planning out your goals and communicating those goals to your agency can help keep everyone on track—and give you a more useful website.
