5 Fatal Flaws Of Small Business B2B Websites
70% of small business B2B websites lack a clearly defined call to action on their homepage—just one of the surprising flaws uncovered in a new study sponsored by Small Business Trends.
Here's a look at the areas where B2B websites struggled the most...
1) 70% lack a call to action on the homepage
Without the right call to action, you’re going to have a really hard time turning website traffic into leads and leads into customers. Every page on your site should serve a specific purpose. A call to action is your chance to engage your visitors and form a connection that will ultimately increase the likelihood they’ll make a purchase.
With each specific page, identify the one thing you’d want someone to do. Examples could include signing up for an enewsletter, downloading a whitepaper, requesting a demo, getting a quote, etc.
2) 56% of B2B websites lack meta descriptions
Think of meta descriptions as the sales copy that appears under your page title and website address in search results. When you don’t update the descriptions on the back end of your website, search engines will automatically pull in content from that specific page. Instead, take some time to write targeted and persuasive meta descriptions. I promise it will be worth the effort!
3) 70% don’t list a phone number prominently
People aren’t going to want to burn a lot of calories trying to find a phone number. If they’re at a point where they want to reach out, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to do so. The header (top of your website) is one option.
4) 87% don’t do anything to make their “contact us” option stand out
The whole point of having a “contact us” option is for people to be able to contact you. If you hide it at the bottom of your site or it blends in with everything else, you’re totally defeating the purpose. Think about the best placement for your “contact us” option and what you can do to make it stand out (without being totally over the top).
5) 82% don’t bother to even list their social media profiles
Think back to the call to action discussion—prospective customers might not be ready to buy when they visit your site, but they might want to connect with you via social media. When they do, that means you’ll be on their radar if and when they want to make a purchase. If you have social media profiles for your business, you definitely want to include them on your website.
The survey results underscore the critical importance of having a strategy in place to make it as easy as possible for prospective customers to 1) actually find your website and 2) ultimately make a purchase once they do.
You can download the free Small Business B2B Call to Action Study.
Want to know if your website has any flaws?
Check out my review of two free online tools to grade your site.
By: Shawn Graham
[Images: Flickr user Andrew Crookston and Small Business Marketing Trends]
Have you subscribed for free small business marketing tips? Get easy-to-implement advice about online marketing, blogging, customer engagement, and social media delivered fresh to your inbox by signing up in the sidebar on the right.
Leave a comment