It’s important that visitors to your website have a positive experience.
Why?
According to the 2014 B2B State of Procurement, 94% of B2B buyers report that they conduct online research before purchasing a business product.
If you’re not providing an excellent online experience, those important visitors may leave and never return.
When Does Business Development Enter the Picture?
Today’s business decision-makers begin by researching your capabilities online. By the time they speak with your business development team, a decision may be already in the works.
With 60-70% of the buying process already complete before engaging with a live person, it is essential that your website provides helpful information that turns visitors into qualified leads.
Online research and website importance is at an all-time high, so how do you build your digital footprint, increase engagement with your brand, and ensure that your visitors leave with a great impression of your company?
5 Simple Ways to Improve your B2B Website for Lead Generation
- Describe What Makes You Unique
Your website should be a continuation of your overall brand message. Does it identify what you offer and how you can help your customers?
We encourage “clear, not catchy” communications for all marketing communications. While trying to be clever, you might miss a valuable connection if visitors become confused and leave.
Consider Leidos homepage, which includes the following clear messages right there on their main slider:
- Partnership for Defense Health
- Security and Transportation Technology
- Include Call to Actions
Do you know what you want your visitors to do once they are on your website? If not, it is time to set goals and lead them.
“Call to Actions” are buttons or links that drive perspective leads to a high-value page on your website that includes a short contact form for lead generation.
Some effective Calls to Action for the aerospace and defense industry include:
- Sign up for our weekly newsletter
- Download our case study
- View our product demo
- Show the Visual Success of Working With You
Your website is where visitors come to learn more about your core capabilities. They specifically want to know about the latest and greatest that you have to offer and how it can benefit them.
However, many business-to-business companies aren’t visually showing their site visitors the success that can be achieved by working together. Stop showing the front of your building or the inside of your office.
Good examples are Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and BAE Systems, which show a visual representation of what is or could be.
- Post Fresh Content
Blogging is an excellent way to engage with your customers and ultimately make their lives easier by sharing valuable content. Have a great case study or invent new technology? Write about it and create more reasons for people to visit your website.
Not only is blogging a great way to be seen as an industry expert but 60% of businesses who blog acquire more customers, according to a HubSpot survey.
There are many more benefits to blogging, including:
- reaching new customers
- better search engine optimization (SEO)
- beat your competition
- Have a Mobile Friendly Design
Did you know that over 50% of internet searches in the US take place on mobile devices? If you have an older website, your visitors may be frustrated viewing it from a tablet or mobile phone.
Do they have to squint to read the text? Or zoom in and out to find what they are looking for?
On April 21, 2015, Google released a new “mobile-friendly ranking algorithm” designed to boost mobile-friendly pages in Google’s search results. What this means is that mobile-friendly websites are now preferred by Google over non-mobile-friendly sites.
If your website is mobile-friendly, then congrats! If it isn’t, but your competitors’ is, then you need to get to work.
Check to see if Google considers your website mobile-friendly by using its Mobile-Friendly Test tool.
Start Today Tip:
Ask a friend to find specific information (e.g., contact information, capabilities, job openings, etc.) on your website to see if they can easily navigate it on both a desktop and mobile device. If they can’t, figure out if you need to place the information better on your existing site or start with a new, mobile-friendly web design.