Your B2B client’s website is their window to the world. It’s their “home base,” and it needs to look sharp and appeal to potential clients immediately. These days, many organizations depend on their social media posts for most of their marketing. But, especially for B2B, if your client doesn’t have an up-to-date website that provides an excellent user experience, their results could suffer.
After auditing dozens of B2B websites in many industries, I’ve noticed some common website mistakes. Here are four of these faux pas for starters, and how to help your clients fix them so their online “calling card” is effective.
1. Your Client’s Homepage Is Not Clear and Compelling
Your B2B clients’ homepage is usually where website visitors go first. People should be able to discover what they do, how they help customers, and how to take the next step within seven seconds of coming to their homepage!
If this is not clear, they may “bounce” and find one of their competitors.
And how do you make your client’s homepage more compelling? I think the best way is through the use of a story. People love stories. When a writer opens up a storyline, most naturally want to read on to see what happens next.
You can invite your audience into your client’s story by talking about these readers’ problems or issues, and how your client’s products or services will solve them. They’ll be much more interested in your client’s items when they see how their products will help them.
There are many more ways to make a B2B homepage clearer and more compelling to their audience. I believe the best way to do this is to incorporate the StoryBrand 7-Part Framework into your client’s homepage and other pages on their website. You can find out more by reading the book Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller.
2. No Blog Article Page
When I do website audits for clients, I’ve noticed many B2B websites don’t have a Blog page. I find this very surprising! Publishing blog articles regularly (at least once per month is recommended, more is better for SEO) is a great way to educate a B2B company’s audience about their company and industry. They are not meant to be sales pages. It’s best to give them the information they need or answer their questions in a narrative form. However, a light CTA (call-to-action) is good to have, especially near the end of the posts.
According to Compass Digital Strategies, having blog articles with helpful content can increase website visitors by 55%. They can also help bring in 67% more leads and increase backlinks to their website by 97%! (Backlinks are created by other websites when they reference your article for their audience.)
Why does adding blog posts create such a significant effect? It’s mainly because it improves your client’s website’s SEO results, as their company can rank for more keywords than before having the Blog page.
Also, by showing their knowledge and expertise in these articles, you build trust and authority in their brand. As readers trust your B2B client more, they are more likely to explore their services further and become customers.
3. No Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) Page
Having an FAQ page is a must-do! After reading all the benefits of having an FAQ page, you’ll wonder why your client’s organization hasn’t created one yet:
- Your FAQ page addresses your readers’ needs. Potential new clients always have questions about your products or services. Your job is to talk to your customer service folks and find out the most asked questions from searchers or new customers.
Think of your FAQ page as the central hub your client’s customers can visit with their questions. You can use this page to answer questions about their company and products, anticipate and answer objections, and retain customers that have issues.
- Use your FAQ page to establish your client’s business as a trusted expert. By answering actual and anticipated questions, you’ll increase their authority and the chances of someone wanting to buy from them.
- A good FAQ page will boost SEO rankings. It’s the perfect place to publish interesting information about their business, products, and services. Google loves content-rich information like this. It also increases the chances of ranking for long-tail keywords their audience is searching for.
A few quick tips for your FAQ page:
- It might be a good idea to divide the page into different sections, especially if you have a long list of questions! For example, some sections could be: About the Company, How to Get Started, Product/Service Questions, How-to Questions, and Troubleshooting.
- Be concise and informative, but reinforce the benefits of working with their company where appropriate.
- Be sure to link to other pages on your client’s website to guide the visitor to more information.
- Format your content for easy consumption. Make it scannable with bullet points, short paragraphs, and white space between subjects.
4. No Internal Links
Internal Links are links to other pages on your B2B client’s website. For example, a blog post that mentions one of their services could have a link to a more in-depth Services page. Or their homepage should have a link to their Schedule a Call page.
The internal links help site visitors better understand your client’s business and how their products can assist them.
Here are more benefits of using internal links:
- They enhance a website’s overall User Experience (UX) — by making it easier to navigate and guiding users to the information they need.
- Increase conversions — by linking to important pages, your client’s visitors will stay longer. This increases their chances of buying from them, or taking another “next step” (like signing up for their newsletter).
- Improve your SEO results — your links create more structure and tell Google’s crawler bots where to go to index your client’s most important pages for higher visibility. A link is like a “vote” for that page or post linked to.
- They tell Google which keywords you want to rank for — by using these keywords as your client’s anchor text (the text in the actual blue link).
Internal links are an excellent way to create CTAs (calls-to-action), such as Get Your Free Report or Contact Us for More Information.
Stay tuned to B2B Writing Success for more website blunders and remedies over the next two months!
