When is it time to update the company’s website? The moment you ask the question is a good rule of thumb.
Updated and well-functioning websites are a prerequisite for all companies, equally important, regardless of whether you work in b2c, b2b or other areas. Potential customers only need a few seconds to get an idea about the company the first time they visit the site. The site is your digital face outwards and for many suspects it’s the very first meeting with the company. Unfortunately, it is not uncommon to find b2b sites that are stiff, uninspiring and barely updated since 1995?
B2b sites should drive sales
Having a good website is no longer just a must for the company to be online. The site should have conversion points and complete the sales process. For most b2b companies, the purpose of the website is to generate leads and help suspects and prospects forward in their buying processes.
Time to update? Here is the checklist!
We have collected 18 questions to B2B companies that are considering whether it’s time to update their website. If you answer no to more than five of the questions, it’s time to review the site you have today.
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Does the site reflect your brand?
The company’s vision, customer promise and core values will shine through design, content and features.
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Are there any conversion points?
The majority of your subpages and landing pages should have at least one conversion point. It may be a READ MORE link or a Call to action button. As a B2B company, you want to strive to collect interesting visitors’ contact information as often as possible. Using “gated content”, that is, content reached by users by giving away contact information is a great way to increase the number of leads in the CRM system.
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Is it easy to update or add content?
Continuously filling the site with new content is good for both the users and the search engines. The site looks live and updated, and the publishing date of the content is one of the parameters of Google’s spiders.
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Can visitors quickly understand what you do?
It’s no longer just the start page to answer what your company offers. With search optimized content, all subpages can become the visitor’s entry to the site. In addition to the content on the page, the main menu, the footer and any page columns should show what the business is about.
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Is the content written for the user?
It is common to see b2b sites packed with information about the company’s history, board and product details already on the homepage. Is this initially interesting for potential customers? Well. A proper information hierarchy makes it easier to look forward to the most important information.
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Is the site easy to navigate and intuitive?
This question is related to the last question and information hierarchy. Poor navigation is frustrating and can result in visitors choosing to leave the page. Facilitate navigation using descriptive menu names, keep the number of main menus up to max 7 (better 5), develop site search function, and let the logo function as a start page button.
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Is the website SEO-adapted?
All sites need search engine customisation. This can be repeated: all sites must be search engine-adapted. A website without SEO strategy does not appear at Google and misses an important source of traffic. Not only does it have a strategy, the site itself must offer some technical SEO elements, such as meta descriptions and feed features.
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Have you linked Google Analytics?
By adding a Google Analytics code into the HTML, you can begin to evaluate how well the site works.
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Is the site responsive?
It’s 2017 and everyone should answer yes!
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Have you got rid of all Flash-based content?
Flash died out in 2015 and has been replaced by, among other things, HTML5. Flash degrades its performance and does not belong to a modern website.
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Do you have sharing buttons for social media?
Make sure that sharing buttons to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social media are clearly visible, regardless of where on the site the user is.
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Does the website have a modern design?
Design trends come and go but some will probably not be back in a good while. A good web designer will keep a close eye on what durable design solutions can work for your business and industry. But the design comes quite late in the process: after the goal, content planning and structure are set.
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Does the site have a good URL structure?
Simple and descriptive URLs help both the user and the search engines to find the right information. The URLs should be “clean” from unnecessary characters and describe the content on each page.
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Are your contact forms easy to fill in?
Contact forms can sometimes feel stubborn but are smart ways to collect contact information or provide the user with easy ways to contact the company. Nice and good forms should be clean and really request as little information as possible. Name and email address are usually the most important information to collect. All other fields, such as job title, phone number, country or physical address, are unnecessary additions that few users are interested in leaving. Each additional step in a contact form is one step closer to a lost interest in the visitor. Of course, we have already written a blog post about how to create a good contact form that converts =)
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Are there content streams?
See paragraph 7. A content flow, such as a blog, is a great way to add new, search-optimised content to the site. B2b blogs can be used as knowledge centres where the company can showcase its thought leadership in its area.
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Are you collecting leads through the website?
See the web as an extra seller! Lead generation is about to close the customer relationship and support suspects and prospects their decision-making process. Create both free and locked content that adds value to your visitors. Use forms to lure them to give away their contact information.
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Do you have a modern imagery?
The site’s imagery is an important factor in your web design. Photos, videos, illustrations and icons are different elements that together put the tone for the site’s appearance. Today we rarely see small, simple pictures and graphical material takes over more and more.
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Do you load the pages quickly enough?
Loading the pages is easy to lose visitors’ interest. Visitors expect quick pages where they do not have to wait to see the content. Poor charging speed is also bad from an SEO perspective.
Hopefully you answer yes to the vast majority of the above questions. If not, we would like you to hear from us!
