I’ve been relatively brand loyal to my local car dealership over the years. Their sales associates were always informative without being pushy. Their service center was efficient and trustworthy. And their customer service reps were attentive and helpful. Recently, though, this hasn’t been the case. Because of new management and new personnel, the experience is far from what it used to be.
I knew it was time for a change.
That’s how many business leaders feel when they decide to tackle a B2B website redesign. Perhaps they’re not getting enough web traffic. Maybe they’re looking to generate more leads or online sales. Or, what we often hear from clients, it just looks old.
No matter the motivation, the questions are usually the same: Where do I start? What should I focus on? Can we manage this ourselves?
As a Hubspot marketing agency partner, we view website design within the lens of a holistic inbound marketing strategy in order to properly attract new leads and deliver real value that drives user action. As such, the key to a high performing website is more than just the look and feel of it. If you’re thinking about redesigning your website, consider the following approach for establishing the right web design strategy.
Start with Customer Feedback
In our last blog, we examined how a contemporary website can meet the demands of today’s B2B buyer through strategic content, messaging and engagement. To further understand the role that your website plays in the B2B buyer journey, start by talking to your customers. Ask them questions that are indirectly related to your website in order to uncover the right insights. Examples might include:
- How has our product or service addressed your needs?
- What made you choose us over other companies you evaluated?
- What’s important to you when investing in new products or services for your company?
The feedback you get is valuable for a few reasons:
- It identifies the type of content that your customers value most. For instance, you may find that your customers place a higher emphasis on reading a related case study instead of your blog.
- It signals when customers are engaging with your website in relation to the stage in their buyer journey. Did they start interacting with your site during their awareness phase (by reading eBooks or blogs) or closer to their point of purchase (with pricing pages or online demos)?
- It prioritizes the elements you’ll want users to interact with, and it begins to shape the language and calls-to-action you’ll deploy.
Driving B2B Website Conversions
It can be difficult to determine the appropriate design features that impact your website’s usability and overall performance. What’s important to understand is that not all websites should be treated equally. B2B and B2C sites often cater to different experiences. An eCommerce company requires a different style than a company that primarily sells through other avenues.
Here are some of the items to consider in order to drive more conversions:
- Site navigation: Make it intuitive. Put yourself in the shoes of your customer and lay out your site in a way so that users can quickly find what they need.
- Language and images: Make them clear and professional. Avoid over creative language that, while catchy, fails to get the point across to the user.
- Responsiveness: Make it mobile-friendly. With more than half of all web traffic coming from mobile devices, it’s critical for your developer to be mindful of the site experience from varying devices.
- Calls-to-action: Make them stand out. Ask yourself what you’d like your users to do next. Is it sending them to a landing page? Adding an item to their cart? Or, having them fill out a contact form? Decide what’s right for your business and align your CTAs accordingly.
How to Manage the Web Design Process
From customer research to content planning to creative execution, redesigning a website is no easy task. Rather than managing all of the work internally, we recommend finding an agency partner(s) that can alleviate some of the burden. Some agencies are equipped for handling all of these aspects, while others are more specialized in specific areas. Define the right mix for your company, and evaluate potential agencies based on similar examples of their work that validate their expertise and experience.
Want to better understand our approach for website design? Contact us to schedule a consultation today.
Want more information about making your redesign successful?
Explore the factors that will make your website effective, compelling and profitable! In this eBook, Principles for Website Design Success, you’ll learn:
How to start planning for your web redesign project;
How to develop a strategy that will produce the results you expect;
What it takes to make your website investment pay off; and
How to balance design, content writing, SEO and technical performance.
About Lasso Up, Digital Marketing Agency
Lasso Up opened with a mission to help companies leverage the web in order to communicate their brand value, attract new customers and grow their businesses through digital marketing strategies and technologies. The perfect mix of art and science, our teams are customized based on client needs and are made up of only senior-level professionals – no interns, junior account execs or offshore resources. The synergy is created by combining the talents of certified marketing strategists, branding and interactive designers, technology gurus, SEO specialists and content writers with your team of experts to deliver ROI via long term partnerships.
By leveraging our top level resources and diverse skillsets, we provide tremendous value to organizations by acting as an extension to your team to achieve the goals you define as success.
