Why do you think it is that website design is a make or break factor for B2B customers? The answer can be summed up in one phrase—customer experience.
Of course, there’s a lot that goes into that phrase. Good website design isn’t just about all the visual bells and whistles. Of course, having visual appeal is essential, but a website is a priority marketing tool. This means that B2B customers aren’t just looking for a beautiful website; they’re looking for a functional one.
Of course, B2C customers want an eye-catching site, but the more robust purchasing journey of the B2B buyer means it is more important for them to do business with a company that is functionally proactive and exhaustive in their web design.
Many of the web design benefits of a good B2B website are apparent. And most times, to gain these benefits, you need to look at things from the buyer’s perspective.
What is the importance of well-designed websites to a B2B customer? We’ve outlined a few reasons why in this post.
B2B buyers want love at first sight
We’ve all heard the phrase “love at first sight.” People only want to get to know someone if the first impression they get from the person is positive. The same applies to B2B customers and website design.
It doesn’t matter if you sell physical products like Alibaba, or provide a service like writing recommendation service, Online Writers Rating. All your marketing efforts and revenue will fall short if customers are not willing to step in the front door.
To get them to take that step, your website needs to be visually appealing. Of course, it doesn’t contribute directly to the actual customer conversion. Still, well-designed websites are a necessary introduction if a site visitor is ever going to become or consider becoming a customer down the line.
B2B buyers don’t want to play the guessing game
The bulk of B2B buyers do a ton of research when looking for a business partner, so by the time a buyer comes on your site, they probably already know what you’re about. While they may already know what you offer, they still need to find out how you provide your solution and the steps you require they take to make it happen.
The importance of web design to address this need is crucial. Buyers want a web design that incorporates clearly-defined and well-placed primary CTA. It shows them exactly what to do when they land on your site to get results. Employing an excellent primary CTA design can help boost your conversion by 21%.
This also has to do with your secondary CTAs because not all visitors come to purchase immediately. Many will want to check out the site and find out more first. Your secondary CTAs will ensure to give them access to the info they need to lead them to a favorable buying decision ultimately.
B2B buyers want clarity
Employing clean and simple functionality is key to the experience people have on your website. In a bid to stand out and be unique, some business owners design their way out of well-accepted design practices. This ends up impeding customer experience.
When it comes to design, stick with what works; no potential buyer wants to spend time relearning what works on other sites before browsing your site. A lot of times, this problem shows up with navigation.
When designing your navigation, go with established navigation styles, like breadcrumb or a simple drop-down menu. Depending on how robust your website is, you can use a combination of the two. Also, try to make your website design such that your visitors can get to what they’re looking for with the minimum number of clicks. Clear and minimal, that’s the game.
B2B buyers love sites with a fast response time that don’t eat up a lot of data
Most internet users want a website that loads at the click of the button. In fact, most people will click away from a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. Google knows this as well, and that’s why load speed is a significant ranking factor for its search engine algorithm.
Thankfully, the measure you need to take to achieve faster load times also helps your site visitors save on data. Heavy websites take longer to load. They’ve got heavy pictures, unnecessary multimedia, and clustered content.
You’ll need to optimize your website images. Using formats like .jpg is ideal because it can reduce the picture’s size while maintaining its quality. If you’ve got video or audio content on your website, take out all the unnecessary ones, and disable autoplay for the rest. This is also a crucial data-saving technique, especially given that everyone hates the multimedia autoplay function anyway.
Also, use a lot of white space in your web copy and blog content. White space is merely empty space, so it requires no data because there’s nothing to load. Using white space not only helps save data, but it also helps to declutter your content. Your web visitors won’t have to read your content repeatedly before grasping its message.
B2B buyers love mobile-optimized websites
This just makes sense. The internet has been on a mobile revolution for a while, so I don’t think any marketer or business owner can argue this. With Google now using a mobile-first indexing strategy and the majority of netizens preferring mobile devices, a mobile-responsive website is a no-brainer.
It will take some work and time to get this done, but it is worth it. You don’t want to find out what is on the other side of a non-mobile-responsive. Donald Fomby of the essay writing service review platform, Best Writers Online, says that optimizing their platform for mobile got more results than all other major site optimization techniques they already had in place.
Simply put, a website that is not optimized for mobile is losing out on a ton of leads and conversions. This is bad for your bottom line.
Final words
We’ve established that website design is not all about visual appeal. We’ve also highlighted how well-designed websites help with visitors’ first impressions, improve your site’s usability, and improve lead generation and conversion.
Web design benefits extend beyond the few mentioned on this list. With a strong understanding of customer data and good knowledge of web design best practices, you’ll be able to design a website that you and your visitors will love.
If for nothing else, consider this: your competitors are taking these measures, and B2B buyers expect them. So literally, you’d be boosting your bounce rate if you decide not to employ these design tactics.
Frank Hamilton is a blogger and translator from Manchester. He is a professional writing expert in such topics as blogging, digital marketing and self-education. He also loves traveling and speaks Spanish, French, German and English.