Mind The Details To Get The Most From Your B2B Website

Competition drives B2B website leaders to constantly improve because slim differences can have a deep impact on their bottom lines.

Improvement opportunities are sometimes found in major initiatives, such as a website redesign. But market leaders know key opportunities can also be recognized between redesigns, where optimization can focus on site performance KPI and, most importantly, lead generation.

The key is to track how the b2b buyer is interacting with your site with both breadth and depth, ultimately making sure value is maximized across every page.

Minimizing Customer Dead Ends Can Translate To Maximized Conversion Rate

It’s not uncommon for a B2B marketer or executive to approach a web design project with constraints on how deep in the website the update will go. These constraints can be budget-related, but often they come from a more short-sighted view of the value proposition and overall customer experience.

Digital marketing leaders understand the value loss when any customer journey results in a dead-end. It represents user frustration – a waste of time for the user – and a missed opportunity to make a positive connection and progress in the buying journey.

There are four B2B website landing pages that are typically the first to be trimmed and are often overlooked in a website design project. For the user, these pages commonly reflect a dead end and result in a bump in bounce rate analytics. For the clever B2B marketer, they represent an opportunity to recognize unrealized rewards.

Search Results: Better Results, Better Conversion Rate

A B2B business should think about search results in two ways: incoming results from an external search, such as a user finding a landing page on Google, and results of internal search, where a prospect seeks additional information from and about your B2B business.

External search landing pages can often appear as a top 20 B2B landing page, and thus represent a meaningful opportunity to optimize. While an underserved page yields only content relevant to the specific topic, an optimized page brings links compelling content marketing — perhaps the most compelling content on the website — forward to users to support their journey and help them avoid dead ends.

Internal search result pages also deserve careful consideration. In addition to making sure some kind of follow-up, step is available, B2B marketing teams can also develop content marketing that goes further and delivers something more meaningful to users about the business.

Beyond actionable next steps and effective content adjacency, search results themselves should be sure to give priority to the most effective, relative content. Combined, these methods create the best experience for users and prospects as well as the best results for your business.

The 404 Page: Replacing Dead Ends With Next Steps

In a world of design and technology perfection, no business website would ever deliver a page-not-found message to a prospect or user. However, some users will almost assuredly find a way to your 404 page either due either a design flaw, technical error of some kind, or some other reason.

Still, a technical dead-end doesn’t have to be a dead-end for a potential customer.

Some B2B companies take the opportunity to express their brand voice in a playful way, which can delight users, but what’s more important is to provide users a path forward. This might include content promoting the website’s latest blog posts, product updates, or even a site map with some supporting suggestions on how to approach it. Each of these could be a key step to getting a user moving forward on the buying journey.

The Thank You Page: Gratitude Plus a Path Forward

The page resulting when a prospect has completed a form submission is considered by most companies as completion of a goal achieved. A web-based outcome built through a lot of planning and execution.

But the completion of a single form shouldn’t mean the completion of a website’s relationship with a prospect or customer, and the thank you is a perfect time to lay the groundwork for that continuation.

Upon submitting contact information, a potential customer should receive details on expected next steps, such as when to expect to hear back. Additional information such as case studies or insights might also be appropriate to surface, depending on the specific context.

But just because your web page has generated a win for your business doesn’t mean the relationship with a prospective client can’t continue. After submitting contact information, each potential customer contact should be given guidance toward what to expect next, such as when they should expect to hear back from your organization.

Depending on where the contact form was completed, additional information such as case studies or insights can also be surfaced.

The Contact Us Page: A Crucial Visitor Destination

The Contact Us can be a critical page for B2B customers – the important point where they’re looking to reach out to your organization. In some ways, the design seems like it couldn’t be more straightforward. Still, the details are important to attend to carefully.

Beyond delivering the basics of address and location, phone numbers, and so on, a Contact Us landing page is a chance to continue a conversation with a visitor who is about to become a prospect.

Once again, the key is finding the right content adjacency play for your business. In places where a general contact form is at play, there may be an opportunity to carry forward additional resources that were surfaced earlier in the journey.

If there is a support contact form involved, users might appreciate FAQs and knowledge bases that may guide them deeper into the site to find alternative solutions.

Details Matter: Every Page An Opportunity

Every page of a B2B website design should be tended as a potential opportunity to make a first impression with the target audience, potentially transforming a visitor into a customer.

A B2B marketing analytics review focused on exit percentage can identify the places where the impression isn’t matching the expectation, and help form a list of improvement opportunities for your customers and your company.

Even where robust resources and quality case studies are in place if consideration of the user journey is lost and a genuine connection isn’t developed and nurtured, conversions may struggle.

Every potential connection deserves consideration.