A strong online presence is a must for businesses in today’s digital landscape. However, when marketing to other businesses (B2B), you must take a different approach than standard consumer-focused websites. Business-to-business websites are more than just a virtual storefront. They promote trust, development, and long-term partnerships. Having designed and maintained multiple B2B websites over my career, I’ve witnessed personally how they can serve as the foundation of a comprehensive sales and marketing plan. Let’s look at what makes a B2B website function, how to market it effectively, and design concepts that increase conversions.
- Effective B2B website marketing requires a targeted approach, using content marketing, SEO, and paid advertising on platforms like LinkedIn to reach the right audience. A combination of email marketing and automation helps nurture leads through multiple touchpoints before purchase.
- Great web design is crucial for B2B websites, especially due to the longer sales cycle and complex business solutions. A well-designed, responsive, and fast-loading site improves user experience, boosts SEO rankings, and enhances lead generation.
- High-performing B2B websites such as Anrok, Unmind, and Nas Studios showcase how companies use personalized, engaging content and design elements (like interactive sliders or videos) to enhance user engagement and convert leads.
- Adding social proof, personalized content, live chat support, and clear calls-to-action (CTAs) significantly improves conversion rates. These elements build trust, encourage interaction, and guide visitors through the sales funnel.
- A successful B2B website strikes a balance between visual appeal and usability. Streamlined design, simple navigation, and clear value propositions are prioritized to meet the needs of B2B buyers, making the website both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
What is a B2B website?
Business-to-business (B2B) websites are marketing tools that sell products or services online to other companies or organizations rather than individual consumers. B2B businesses typically have a more prolonged sales cycle. Their websites generate a consistent stream of qualified leads, which convert into paying customers or long-term affiliates. B2B websites are also valuable resources for sales teams and affiliate partners.
B2B Website Marketing
Marketing a B2B website is fundamentally different than promoting a consumer-facing site. The stakes are larger, the purchasers are better informed, and the decision-making process is much more complicated. I’ve managed digital marketing for several B2B organizations, and I can tell you that it all comes down to targeting the right audience and providing them with the right content at the right time.
Content marketing is one of the most effective strategies I’ve used for B2B website marketing. By generating whitepapers, blog posts, webinars, and extensive product guides, you can present prospective customers with helpful resources to assist them solve their problems. These resources will eventually establish your company as a thought leader in your sector.
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is another important factor. Ranking for keywords like “best industrial hardware supplier” or “enterprise IT solutions” means that when your target audience searches for vendors, they come across your website first. According to Blue Corona’s research, 61% of B2B marketers believe SEO generates more leads than any other marketing activity.
Paid advertising also plays an important role. LinkedIn, Google Ads, and even specialized sector websites allow you to precisely target your audience. I’ve run LinkedIn ad campaigns that drove C-suite executives to download whitepapers. It’s a win-win situation: they get useful information, and we get a qualified lead for our sales staff to nurture.
From personal experience, combining email marketing with marketing automation has proven to be the most effective strategy for my marketing initiatives. B2B buyers typically require multiple touchpoints before making a purchase decision, and a timely email following a site visit can re-engage potential prospects and move them along the sales funnel.
The Impact of Great Web Design on B2B Brands
Designing B2B websites using best practices is critical to ensuring that the site performs and delivers what your audience requires and expects. Design is critical to provide the best user experience for website visitors. The better your website’s user experience is for all visitors, the more frequently your brand will leave a pleasant, long-lasting impression and get new customers.
There are three primary reasons why superb web design may make or break the success of a B2B website:
Supporting a Longer Sales Cycle: Unlike most B2C transactions, B2B sales cycles are typically protracted. In fact, the B2B client journey frequently involves many interactions and touchpoints across various media platforms and mobile devices. While B2C brands often expect sales transactions to be completed in a single website visit, B2B organizations rarely expect prospects to convert on their first visit.
Sophisticated Business Solutions: Consumer products are typically straightforward, easy to use, and understand. Meanwhile, B2B solutions are generally more sophisticated, necessitating a thorough understanding of certain industries, technologies, and applications. When you provide these B2B solutions online, your website becomes an invaluable resource for teaching and supporting your audience’s needs throughout the client’s life cycle.
SEO (search engine optimization): Well-designed websites are also important for B2B brands because thoughtful web design improves user engagement metrics and SEO signals such as Page Experience, allowing the site to capture more organic search traffic–which translates to more visiting prospects who may become qualified sales leads.
If you’re looking for inspiration or direction on how to develop a great B2B website, check out these examples of B2B websites that provide excellent web-based experiences to users.
B2B Website Example
The best B2B websites employ various tactics. Here are a few B2B website examples that demonstrate how specialists do it.
#1. Anrok
The sales tax on Software as a Service (SaaS) varies by location, providing a barrier for SaaS enterprises. Anrok addresses this issue by automating sales tax compliance for enterprises. The landing page for this website includes a brief overview of the product, an appealing value proposition, and a schematic picture of the client dashboard.
The site also features case studies with key company staff members using Anrok that appeal to different types of stakeholders. A company co-founder interview might appeal to a senior executive researching the product, while interviews with controllers directly involve people in the company’s financial details.
#2. Unmind
Unmind intends to improve employee mental health through its workplace well-being platform. This B2B company’s website is a great example of how to create meaningful interactions that demonstrate the value of a product. One of these interactions, a slider, displays the numerical relationship between employee headcount and the expense of mental health issues to the company, allowing visitors to personalize the experience by finding their headcount on the slider.
#3. Nas Studios
Nas Studios capitalizes on the fact that seven out of every ten B2B buyers view videos as part of their decision-making process. This studio’s website, designed by Diego Toda de Oliveira, features high-quality films, interesting yet professional animations, and testimonials from well-known figures such as Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates. While the Nas website has certain animations and fancy effects, they are appropriate for a company that promotes user involvement online.
#4. Asana
Asana performs an excellent job driving their viewers where they want them to go. On their homepage, a massive call-to-action (CTA) sits in the “first fold” to convert visitors into customers. As customers scroll, they will see more CTAs positioned around animations showing the product in operation, including interactive design elements that prompt users to learn more and navigate to related pages.
#5. Acme
Acme is a prime example of this principle, enhancing the user experience using a minimalistic approach (a rare choice in B2B web design) to reduce load time and improve readability. When there is less content on a page, each element can stand out more. Acme’s site design is polished and simple, making tiny statements, such as the centered and obviously apparent “Industrial Solutions Since 1975” motto, more impactful and memorable for customers.
#6. Zendesk
Zendesk has done an outstanding job with its website, centering the design on excellent customer service from the start. From the top fold of the homepage, site visitors can sign up for a free trial, see a software demonstration, and click to chat with a live sales representative while getting the full experience at the tip of their fingers.
#7. Sendlane
The BB Agency website for email marketing company Sendlane presents the company’s services in a fresh color scheme of pink, white, green, and black, with plenty of white space and clean design components. The site’s copy properly explains the service while emphasizing what distinguishes it from similar organizations, which is an essential approach in such a crowded sector.
#8. Mailchimp
Mailchimp is another email marketing and automation tool on our list of the top B2B websites and tools. The website clearly defines its service offerings, and its price plan page goes into greater detail than most regarding what’s included in each pricing tier. Mailchimp is a widely used tool in email marketing services.
#9. Buffer
This is an excellent example of a user-friendly and well-designed B2B website. The platform provides a number of social media management services for organizations, and it is quite simple to use. Its call-to-action buttons are carefully colored in various colors to encourage visitors to interact with the product.
B2B Website Design
When it comes to B2B website design, striking a balance between usefulness and aesthetics is crucial. As much as I enjoy a visually appealing website, my experience has proven that B2B buyers prioritize usability, speed, and content accessibility over flashy animations or elaborate design components.
The design must be tailored to your target demographic. In one job, I helped redesign a B2B website for an IT services company. The former website’s style was cluttered, making it difficult for visitors to discover the information they required.
We streamlined the design by organizing key content under clear headers and including a visible search bar. In just three months, our user-centric design strategy increased lead generation by 30% while simultaneously improving navigation.
Key characteristics of efficient B2B website design are:
- Clear Value Proposition: Make it evident what you provide and why it is superior to competitors.
- Simple Navigation: Buyers should be able to discover product pages, case studies, contact forms, and other content without having to crawl around.
- Responsiveness: The website must appear and perform properly on all devices. Mobile traffic is becoming an increasingly important source of B2B website visitors. According to Smart Insights, 50% of B2B queries are made through mobile devices, making response critical.
- Fast Loading Times: Nobody likes waiting for pages to load, especially busy professionals. Slow websites might cause greater bounce rates and missed opportunities.
- Effective Use of CTAs: Calls-to-action (CTAs) should direct the visitor through the buying process. For example, providing links like “Download Brochure,” “Request a Quote,” or “Schedule a Demo” is essential in turning prospects into leads.
Best B2B Website Designs to Get Inspired By
Here are some examples of B2B website designs below:
#1. IBM
B2B eCommerce websites are utilized to handle wholesale shipping. IBM is a leading technology company that offers one of the greatest B2B portals. The horizontal navigation properly categorizes products and services, and the hero banner highlights the company’s most recent value proposition.
#2. eWorldTrade
eWorldTrade is one of the fastest-growing online wholesale B2B marketplaces, featuring revolutionary features designed specifically for traders. What impressed us about this gateway was the use of color to persuade the reader to take action on a very busy main page. It also has a useful lead capture form on the right side.
#3. Amazon
Our list would be incomplete without this eCommerce behemoth. We like Amazon’s obvious call to action and pricing placement beneath the “sign up” button. It makes selling appear effortless. The home page is well-designed, with a clear navigation that enables firms to sign up and obtain information about the sales process.
How to Optimize Your B2B Website for Conversion
Creating a B2B website isn’t enough; you also need to optimize it for conversions. From my personal experience dealing with various B2B organizations, I’ve discovered that the following four strategies can significantly enhance conversion rates:
- Add Social Proof: Testimonials, case studies, and client logos boost prospects’ confidence. In one case, adding testimonials from respected clients to a B2B website resulted in a 15% boost in conversion rates.
- Personalized Content: Marketing automation solutions allow you to display personalized content based on a visitor’s industry, location, or behavior. When we developed dynamic content on a client’s website, customizing messaging to various industries, interaction increased by 22%.
- Live Chat Support: Giving visitors immediate access to support or sales staff via live chat can help convert them into qualified leads. After I implemented live chat on a B2B website, we doubled our lead inquiries.
- Clear CTAs (Calls to Action): It is vital to place conspicuous, actionable CTAs throughout the website. When we rebuilt a client’s B2B site and made the CTAs prominent and consistent across all pages, the number of people seeking demonstrations increased by 40%.
“Our checklist will help you conduct a thorough audit of your B2B website, uncovering opportunities to improve design, content, SEO, and user experience. Download it now and take your website to the next level.”
What is a good example of B2B?
An example of B2B would be between a wholesaler and a retailer or as between a manufacturer and a wholesaler. Unlike Business-to-Consumer (B2C) transactions, B2B deals often involve larger order quantities and more complex negotiations.
What makes a great B2B website?
A successful B2B website is more than just a digital brochure; it’s a strategic tool that can drive leads, build brand awareness, and ultimately boost your bottom line. Here are some key elements that make a great B2B website:
- Clear and concise messaging
- Strong call-to-actions (CTAs)
- User-friendly design
- High-quality content
- Credibility and trustworthiness
- Lead generation forms
How do I create a B2B website?
Here is how to create an effective B2B website from End-to-End:
- Perform market research.
- Plan a goal-oriented roadmapping process.
- Design with your target audience in mind.
- Consider key UI and UX elements.
- Manage on-page SEO.
- Conduct A/B tests.
How do I monetize my B2B website?
Monetizing your B2B website is essential for generating revenue and sustaining your business. Here are some effective strategies to consider:
- Lead generation and sales
- Product or service sales
- Advertising and partnerships
- Subscription-based services
- Consulting or coaching services
- Freelancing or outsourcing
Conclusion
Your B2B website is an important tool that can help you attract new customers, raise brand awareness, and increase revenue. By following the advice in this article, you can develop a website that is both functional and visually beautiful.
What is the most crucial aspect of a B2B website, in your opinion? Please share your ideas in the comments below.
Related Articles
- Top 10+ B2B Social Media Strategy Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
- 10+ B2B Social Media Strategies To Boost Your Business
- How to Create a B2B Buyer Persona: A Step-by-Step Guide for Marketers
- Mastering B2B Online Marketing: Strategies, Trends, and Insights
- 7 Proven B2B Digital Marketing Strategies for Business Growth (+ Top Agencies)