As a website designer, your job is to help B2B companies present themselves professionally to their target audience while standing out from the competition. For this to happen, it is crucial to learn about their customer’s buyer journey and work closely with their marketing department.
And like any other project, there will be some barriers you will need to overcome to help your clients reach their goals.
So, to help you give your client a B2B website that is effective and fully functional, here are five challenges in designing B2B websites you may want to avoid (and how to overcome them):
1. Amateur Looking Website
What do you do if your client doesn’t know what they want? As a freelance web designer, you need to listen to what your client wants and gently guide them towards conventionally appropriate web design for their niche and users.
It takes 15 seconds for a user to decide if a website looks trustworthy, and in those precious seconds, you need to leave a positive impression. Unlike B2C websites, which give more freedom for creativity and uniqueness, B2B websites should have a professional appearance, no matter the niche.
Here’s a checklist of what to consider when designing a website for your B2B client:
- Color Scheme Matters: Note that different niches follow specific color schemes, make sure you don’t venture out too far from the conventional colors used.
For example, event suppliers usually go for playful colors and themes, while technology businesses tend to prefer a more reserved yet modern look; check out https://www.jumpfactor.net/msp-web-design to get a feel of a tech business’ design theme.
- Choose The Right Background And Font: These overlooked and simple elements do a lot to make your client’s website look good to their target market. Knowing which serif font evokes the vibe they want is essential as you will see these two main elements all over the website.
- Favicon: Don’t forget to put a favicon, so your client’s website stands out when someone bookmarks them.
- Use Pictures With High Resolution: Nothing says shady like pixelated pictures. Websites these days show a lot of visuals to hook their target market. Suggest a photoshoot of products if your client has the budget for this.
- Keep It Simple: Remind your client not to treat their website like a brochure. Avoid overloading their website with too much information.
If your client insists on going with what they envisioned, try doing heuristic evaluations to present an objective perspective of the website’s UX/UI. Heuristic evaluations are performed by experts that follow a standardized method of assessment. Providing expert feedback may help you establish your case in designing the website according to industry standards.
2. Slow Website
Two seconds—this is how long users wait for a website to load before they go to another website. Making an impression to potential buyers happens in seconds. Your job as a web designer is to help your clients maximize their user experience to increase conversion rates. A beautifully designed website that loads longer will only frustrate and turn off your users.
Resolving this issue may entail using an analytics tool to assess the website. The numbers you get from the analytics tool should tell where to find a site’s deficiencies. It may also be an excellent strategy to partner up with a web developer to help optimize our client’s website. Getting a B2B website to load faster may mean optimizing multimedia on a page, choosing another hosting service or DNS provider, and making sure your codes are loading asynchronously.
3. Complex Navigation
Another factor that contributes to the complexity and inconvenience of using a B2B website is navigation. There is no standard way to layout a B2B company’s navigation, but it is essential to consider what users need to decide. It will not matter if your B2B client has many products; you just need to work with them to figure out how to streamline their user’s website experience.
To resolve the confusing navigation, work with your clients to:
- Use Categories: Divide the products into categories.
- Utilize Clickable Elements: Ensure the navigation elements are clickable .
- Use Alt Text: Include an Alt text in all clickable elements to be inclusive to differently-abled users.
- Use Accurate Navigation Titles: Directness is preferred over cleverness by B2B buyers.
- ”Search” Function: Always have ”Search” function that compensates for misspelled words and use this to show related products you may or may not have. Just avoid a dead-end page with a ”no products found” message.
- Use The Footer: You can utilize the footer to include other pertinent links to help give your clients client’s users a frictionless experience in their buyer’s journey.
4. Too Little Touch Points
The B2B customer’s journey from the top of the sales funnel to the bottom can take a longer path than the B2C journey. This means a B2B website must have more touchpoints or channels to interact with the company.
Compared to a B2C site that typically pushes to get the sale in the quickest time possible, B2B purchases, on the other hand, usually require a business to create a good relationship with the customer before getting that sale.
Here are some strategies you can use to increase the time customers spend on a website:
- Strategically Placed CTAs
To encourage users to spend more time on the client’s site, they can leverage calls to action (CTAs) strategically placed. Engaging the users by asking them to act on the instructions they see is keeping them on the website.
- Personalize the Experience
Utilizing new technology like chatbots for real-time, personalized response is also an excellent way to increase interest from users.
- Give Compelling Content
Creating compelling content is just one of the ways to provide users with valuable content. These can be in the form of case studies, white papers, infographics, or blog posts.
Remember, part of the objectives of creating and designing a B2B website is to keep customers interested and glued to a website’s content for the longest time possible to persuade them to transact and purchase a service or product.
5. Limited Accessibility
Another factor to consider when designing a B2B website is accessibility. Engaging potential customers means ensuring your client’s website can be effectively used by people with different backgrounds, demographics, and abilities.
Making the website inclusive to differently-abled users or usable in alternative devices is one factor that can help the website you’re stand out from its competitors.
Remember, even if the majority of the users of a B2B website uses a desktop or laptop, there can be instances wherein they will try to access the site on other gadgets like a smartphone or tablet. These gadgets will vary in dimensions and browsers, so you should have considered these scenarios when planning the website’s design.
Wrapping Up
To sum up, you should always be guided with the fundamental objectives when designing a website. As a freelance web designer, it is also crucial to know how a B2C customer’s journey differs from a B2B customer’s journey. Knowing the difference means creating the appropriate content to help close the sale in the smoothest, most cost-effective way possible.
Lastly, you should always make sure the B2B website you are designing is highly responsive and adaptable through the simplicity of design and ease of using it.
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