5 Reasons to Refresh Your Website Now
When asked about your business-to-business website, have you ever said:
As a B2B executive, you intuitively know the more complex your service or product is the harder your website has to work for you, your brand and your sales and service teams. Here’s the rub: C-level priorities, tight budgets or lack of resources might make it very challenging to maintain a compelling online presence and continuously drive qualified traffic to your website. After all, to accomplish this, you would need a team of knowledgeable multichannel marketers working continuously on keeping the site fresh.
This means:
- Publishing relevant content regularly
- Developing compelling offers
- Executing traffic-boosting campaigns
- And, actively monitoring competitor sites and traffic analytics to pinpoint opportunities for enhancements
Yes, you say, but…
Much more than a pat on the back from the C-suite and your sales and service teams (although, that’s a great reward in itself!). When your site works hard for you, your business (and bottom line) benefits from:
And this list just scratches the surface.
START AT SQUARE ONE
Even if you had top-level buy-in to consider a website renovation, where would you start? The very best investment you could make is a professional, comprehensive audit of your current site – design, navigation, content, engagement and SEO performance. Done right, this audit will uncover exactly where your site could be working harder and producing better results for your B2B business.
Not quite ready for the audit plunge?
5 REASONS TO REFRESH
Think about these five reasons why a website renovation could be the best decision you make this year.
1. Responsive Design
Business professionals in all industries are on the go. Our work days no longer begin at 9 am and almost never end at 5 pm. Our websites have become 24/7 resources for pros seeking insights and solutions on whatever device they choose — from their mobile phone on the train or in a cafe, their tablet from the boardroom or bedroom or their laptop in the office or kitchen.
If your site hasn’t made the transition to a responsive design that provides an optimal viewing experience across a wide range of devices, then this must be a top priority for you right now. Your site is not delivering easy reading and navigation that’s free of frustrations to resize, pan, click and scroll for your users.
2. Modern Look
A modern look will mean different things to different people, but generally speaking, sites that appeal to business decision makers today employ progressive typography, images and graphics and interactive features. Some signs of the time:
- Flat or semi-flat design is a trend that benefits users with easier to comprehend elements that also load faster.
- Hamburger menus have made their way to website design and their distraction free presence, especially on mobile and tablet devices, have increased conversions.
- Larger type and call-to-action buttons help today’s users easily identify important information and act on it no matter what device they’re using.
- Large and responsive images bring the brand’s identity to life and help the viewer to connect with it on a deeper level. Large product images or photos of products/services in use help users see features or benefits up close and add a great deal of perceived credibility.
- Video and infographics add value to the site’s content. Short videos are sought out by B2B buyers because they often fuel a deeper understanding of information that’s more complex and would typically require more effort to absorb (more reading!). Infographics share important facts in an interesting and easy to digest manner.
3. Easy, Cost-effective Maintenance
One of the biggest barriers B2B marketing execs face is the lack of accessibility or functionality their teams need to keep their website up-to-date. Perhaps their website’s platform is homegrown or the platform is proprietary and costly and time intensive to request regular updates. Sometimes the site’s platform requires specialized, expensive and hard-to-find talent. All of these scenarios create unnecessary obstacles and should be among your top reasons to renovate your site.
While there are a number of reputable content management systems available, there are few that can boast all the benefits of WordPress. It’s ease-of-use, open source, browser-based access, SEO savvy, customizable, extendable, flexible, multi-user features and functions are beloved by millions of businesses worldwide. And, there’s no shortage of talented, affordable WordPress developers anywhere you look.
4. Optimized Content
Revamping your site gives you a new opportunity to map out and optimize your prospect’s buying journey. Whether your target customer can purchase your product or service online or not, they surely use the World Wide Web to educate themselves on topics related to their decision to buy. Your website must embrace your prospect’s buying process and create opportunities for your brand to ease their journey, educate them and generate qualified leads for your sales team.
Another optimization opportunity for your site’s renovation is helping search engines better index and rank your site’s pages. If you choose WordPress, your web developer can employ an SEO plug-in to make it easy to incorporate Meta data basics into every page. And, your copywriter(s) can add extra oomph by researching keywords, placing them strategically throughout the copy on your pages and ensure you’re publishing enough relevant content and keeping it updated on a regular basis.
5. Landing Pages
Keep that traffic coming! Your sales and marketing teams will call you their hero when you reveal that your refreshed site now has the power to easily and swiftly create campaign-specific landing pages. Now, when a new offer or promotion is launched or you’ve got a new product offering or you’ve created a new sales brochure, you can blast these initiatives into the marketplace with a dedicated landing page and powerful response mechanism. Having this ability will breathe new life into your sales and marketing efforts.
READY TO TAKE THE NEXT STEP?
No doubt, there are likely a dozen great reasons to reinvigorate your website. A great place to start is to get to the bottom of exactly how you can make the most of your revamp investment. We recommend an insightful audit of your current site as your first step. It’s a great way to get buy-in from your C-suite and stakeholders and delivers a roadmap for your website renovation. Contact Responsory to learn more.
