8 Tips to Quality Website Design for Businesses

Looking to design a new website for your business? Many key factors contribute to a good website experience for a business-to-business (B2B) company. And almost all of the best practices center around one key fact: companies don’t buy from other companies. People at companies buy from other people at companies.

That means that regardless of whether you’re responsible for marketing your B2B company or a B2C company, you’re still marketing to a person. Additionally, if you believe that people buy from others they know, like and trust, your website has to build that “KLT factor” with your target audience. 

Let’s look at a few of the best practices and trends:

 

#1: Organize Your Content How Your Visitors Want to Find It

Know your customer! And once you identify who you are speaking to, figure out their burning questions. Ensure you’re organizing your content in a way your visitors can easily find the answers. This starts with a good Information Architecture.

Quality IA requires you to plan out the content, much like you blueprint the rooms of a house before building it. Plan the sections of your website, and what doors lead to what information. Make sure it “makes sense” and don’t deviate from best practices unless you are sure it’s intuitive.

 

 

#2: Ensure Your B2B Content is Robust, Well-Written, and Grammatically Correct

Have you ever seen a glaringly obvious grammar error on the homepage of a website? Incorrect grammar leads to distrust in marketing. Well-written copy ensures you communicate the problems of your target audience as well as the solutions that your business provides.

 

#3: Maintain Consistent Website Design (and Ensure It’s Mobile-Friendly)

Similar to grammar issues, inconsistencies in design create distrust. A consistent, modern, mobile-friendly B2B website will elevate your overall brand. We’ve seen it empower companies to close more sales, charge more for their services, and do a better job hiring.

Look at your website as your business hub. The spokes represent your social media accounts, ads, emails, and print materials. The entire hub and spoke should be “on brand” so that your visitors recognize you when they see you. This doesn’t stop at visual design either.

Your brand voice should maintain consistency across the hub and spoke so that you always come across as the same personality to your audience.

 

#4: Include A Stellar “About Us” Page or Section

Did you know that the about us page is often the second most accessed page on a website site? When we’ve analyzed where visitors click on websites, the faces of people tend to rank very high. After all, people work with people and faces build trust.

Almost all well-designed B2B websites include high-quality photos and bios of the team. They also demonstrate the culture of the organization and link to open jobs. Don’t miss the fact that prospective candidates look to this page when applying or interviewing for a job. (Pro-tip: they almost always check out your social channels too).

We’ve learned from years of studying website traffic data, that very often, prospects look to work with people they’ve worked with before. A great recent hire at a new company can be the deciding factor for how someone comes to find your company.

 

#5: Showcase Past Successes and Happy Customers

Case studies, positive reviews and testimonials build trust with your audience. They allow people to start to like you because others have vouched for your services or products.

Very often in a B2B sales process, the customer wants to know that you’ve worked with companies similar to theirs. Case studies are a great way to tell the story of past or current customers so that new prospects can see themselves as the main character in a future success story.

 

#6: Include a Robust Resource Section with Various Types of Content

Do you have a 24/7 sales team? You should, and it should be your website. It’s often said that a good B2B website is a company’s best salesperson or tool.

Content, in all various forms, such as videos, infographics, text, case studies and past/upcoming webinars can answer key questions along the buyer’s journey.

 

 

With a robust, well-organized resource center, topics can be organized in meaningful ways that speak to current trends in your market and promote your team as the thought leaders or experts in their field.

Beyond that, if your team is contributing to the resource center, it will empower them to build relationships with prospects, allow them to promote themselves, and highlight your in-house expertise as a key differentiator.

 

#7: Ensure Your New Website is Optimized for SEO

SEO IS NOT VOODOO MAGIC! When someone asks Google a question that you can answer, you either show up or you don’t. It’s that simple! If you want to show up, you have to ensure some of the key best practices of SEO are followed.

Namely, you have to have content to answer the question. Your website needs to be in good technical standing (with metadata, sitemap.xml and robots.txt and no 404 pages) and have good page structure.

There is a right way and a wrong way to do this. A well-designed B2B website does this the right way. Additionally, you need to pay attention to mobile as separate and distinct from standard devices.

Google’s search index (what they show for a search term) is completely different on desktop vs. mobile devices. If your site sucks on mobile devices, you won’t show up the same as you do on desktop.

 

 

#8: Make Sure Your Website is ADA-Compliant

ADA compliance should be a standard requirement for any website design. For one, ADA-compliant websites are inclusive of those that may have a disability and it’s not fair to them if you don’t make your site accessible. But having a non-compliant website could mean you’re missing out on business.

1 in 6 people have some form of disability. If a prospect is one of them, you are missing out on an opportunity to work together. Accessible website design considers things like contrast ratio, font size and easy organization, but also could have easy plugins to make sure the site is ADA compliant (as a catch-all for any changes in new rules of compliance).

 

Great B2B Websites are Designed with Humans in Mind

All in all, there are many factors that can contribute to whether a B2B website is well designed or not. The right website design requires expertise from experienced designers, developers, content architects and marketers.

Remember that you are designing for a human on the other end. Rather than design the website based on the way you or someone else at your company wants to see it, design for your target audience. Ensure you are building a site that helps a new prospect get to know, like and trust you.

Need some help with this process? Creative MMS is an experienced B2B website design agency and we’d love to guide you in the right direction. Contact us today to discuss your goals and put your best foot forward with your website!