Ten Tips for Building an Effective B2B Site

Want to know the most important factors in designing a B2B site today? Here's our list of ten to consider:

1. Design and Presentation

• Use a simple, uncluttered design with strong visual hierarchy
•  Professional, current look and feel; compact screen design with little/no scrolling
• Branding consistently communicated throughout site
• Hero space is critical to deliver brand message and capture attention; focus on outcome-oriented benefits in this space 
• Customers are okay with scrolling, provided the content has value. Below the fold, surface three to four key messages that go deeper into specific solutions, third- party expert content, post blog headlines or case studies with primary benefit statements
• Use narrow, text-based top navigation with pop-ups, flyouts and drop-downs so users can see choices from one page
• Use consistent, persistent nav throughout site with customer-centric labels
• Don't forget breadcrumbing for ease of back and forth navigation
• Include a text-based site map in the footer to make it easy for users to quickly navigate to other site features

 2. Content

• Content should be user focused and relevant to user needs, pain points and business challenge
• Use clear, simple customer language and limit industry or company jargon
• Content should show thought leadership with engaging, valuable content designed to nurture users through the buy cycle (white papers, testimonials, case studies, demos, ROI calculators) and in different forms (on screen, video, downloadable, interactive demos, webinars, eLearning modules, etc.)
• Consider content chunks designed to help users with their sell-in and presentation challenges, and help them buy your solutions (e.g., downloadable charts that can be dropped into their presentations)
• Use the customer’s voice when possible – show what your customers are saying about you and what analysts, third parties and other experts are saying in real time on your site to create authenticity and relevance
• Align on-site content with off-site visibility and content under an overall content strategy

3. Device Neutrality

• Understand that users have a multiple device relationship with the brand
• Use mobile-friendly and responsive design to ensure a consistent brand experience across platforms, devices and channels

4. Relevance and Value

• Write for your customers, not for yourselves – demonstrate empathy and show value and business results first
• Recognize different users and serve them content based on what you know about them wherever possible (who they are, what business they’ve done, what products they have, where they are in the buy cycle, etc.)
• Address the needs of different decision makers and influencers involved in the purchase decision (e.g., business, financial and technical decision makers)
• Consider real-time messaging and content customization based on recognizing who is visiting the page

5. Choice and Control

• Content should put the user at the center of the experience
• Put the customer in control and focus on the user, their pain points and challenges; allow them to easily navigate to what they need, when they need it
• Highlight related products and services to enhance cross-sell

6. Trust and Transparency

• Present content in ways that build trust
• Provide reasons to believe and proof in the form of third-party content, case studies, testimonials and proof of business results
• Consider smart gating to allow appropriate content to be viewed without intrusion
• Make it easy to engage with sales, service and support contacts 

7. Social Integration

• Design site to be highly sharable across social channels
• Include social buttons to allow users to engage in your social communities as well as like, share, post and comment on content
• Include social accelerators, if relevant, to share content (social bookmarking)

8. Engagement

• Build site to be lead friendly – feature multiple calls to action on every prominent page, in relevant forms (call, email, request contact, chat, share, download, view, subscribe, etc.)
• Content should draw users in and help move them through the buy cycle

9. Visibility

• Site should be integrated with SEO and publishing SEO optimized content
• Include foundational elements such as a fully optimized website, effective backlinking and other off-site optimization, social content and a paid search strategy that is complementary to – not competitive with – the organic strategy
• Optimize for branded keywords and key terms in your industry, plus identify “white space” you can own in your industry

10. Organize for Multiple Stakeholders

• Use personas and use-cases to optimize the user experience for diverse audience groups, from different customer segments to press, analysts, recruits and investors, as appropriate
• Include relevant segments in important navigation and organization (e.g., customer segments, vertical industries, markets, as well as other stakeholders and users – potential recruits, investors, etc.)