B2B Web Design 101: Usability Best Practices

UX (User Experience) and UI (User Interface) are more than just industry buzzwords—they are vital components to any successful lead generation website. 

As consumer behavior continues to evolve and become more and more digital-first, you need to ensure your website marketing strategy optimizes user experience and clearly drives people to convert and become leads. 

So what does it mean to have a website that focuses on usability? Essentially, when someone reaches your website, regardless of how tech-savvy they may or may not be, they need to understand who you are, what you do and why it matters to them right off the bat. 

Then, it’s all about making your website as easy to navigate as possible. You want users to be able to find the information they are looking for and be able to contact you when they’re ready, all without having to jump through hoops. 

Optimizing Your Lead Generation Website

One of the easiest places to start optimizing for usability is through your B2B website design. Go to your website and click on any page. Does it clearly convey the following?

• What site you are on
• What page you are on
• What the major components of the site are (i.e., the main navigation)
• Where you can go next
• How you can search 

If the answer is no to any of these, then Houston we have a problem. 

Since there is no guarantee that a website user is going to visit the home page first, it’s imperative that each page of your website answers the above. If not, users will get frustrated and leave your site—and likely not come back in the future. 

Poor B2B website design can also lead users to believe that doing business with your company might be a negative experience. This is something you want to avoid at all costs. 

Adding the following components to every page of your website helps to alleviate confusion: 

• Company logo (added bonus if it also has a tagline)
• Page name (with the home page being the exception to this rule)
• Main navigation
• Secondary navigation
• Search
• Breadcrumbs or other ‘you are here’ indicators

These components can vary in look and placement on your site but it’s important to remember that you should not reinvent the wheel for the sake of being different. Generally speaking, internet users expect certain elements to be in specific spots and for them to look a certain way, so altering that can negatively impact usability. An example of this is your company logo. Logos are usually in the top-left corner of your desktop screen and are clickable back to the home page. This is what people expect. So, if your logo isn’t clickable or takes you to a page that isn’t the home page, you create ill will with your users. 

The more ill will you create, the less likely the user is going to trust what you have to say, and they’ll, unfortunately, move on. 

By keeping usability in mind when crafting your B2B website design plan, you’ll be able to identify ways to build goodwill with your target audience and establish trust—putting you one step closer to turning users into leads. 

This, however, barely scratches the surface on website usability best practices. Stay tuned for a follow-up post that will go into greater detail!