A strong B2B website is your digital storefront, the first impression for potential buyers. An effective B2B website builds trust and authority by demonstrating your expertise. By guiding them through a seamless user experience, a beautiful and functional website captures leads and fosters lasting business partnerships.

Sometimes it can be difficult to know whether or not your company should invest in a new B2B website but you will undoubtedly find value in a website redesign if you have a rebrand in the works, you are finding it hard to scale the website, or the site isn’t contributing to your sales pipeline. Additionally, optimizing for mobile devices is crucial as more users access websites via smartphones and tablets. A mobile-friendly design enhances user experience and caters to the trend of deep-scrolling. Furthermore, effective search engine optimization (SEO) is essential for promoting your website to your target audience and gaining visibility on search engines like Google. Hiring SEO experts to implement on-page and off-page strategies can help achieve sustainable rankings and drive more traffic to your site.

Differences Between the B2B and B2C Website Redesign Process

Creating a B2B website brings a unique set of challenges compared to a B2C site. B2B clients are less impulsive and usually comprised of a group of six to 10 people. They ask more questions, do more research, and are looking for a website agency that can understand their business objectives. Hiring a professional web designer who specializes in B2B website development is crucial. A leading web designer can create a user-friendly, sales-focused website that effectively targets your local audience and meets your business goals. B2B website design encompasses different elements and processes than consumer facing websites, choose an agency that specializes in B2B marketing strategies.

A B2B website is one of the best tools in your sales strategy to generate qualified leads. It should convey your brand identity, allow your target audience to learn about you and your products and services, and be easy to navigate.

Importance of Preparing Before Website Redesign for B2B Companies

B2B clients come to Motion Tactic frustrated with their out of date, clunky existing site. But a website redesign involves more than just a visual facelift. They need a solution that accurately represents the brand, drives website traffic, supports business objectives, and causes lead generation! Preparing to attract and nurture marketing qualified leads (MQLs) through valuable content and a well-structured website is crucial. This approach helps convert anonymous web visits into MQLs, ensuring that potential leads are guided into taking action even if they are not ready to buy immediately.

Often clients point to competitor websites and say “Make us one like that”. Drawing inspiration from a similar B2B website is normal but copying it for your new site will only take you so far. That’s why it is vital to build a site that encompasses the company brand, core values, and unique value proposition while also being creatively designed. Doing so requires ample preparation before finding a website agency, and will also save you money and time in the long run!

This blog will show you the steps you need to take as a company before employing an agency for a smooth website redesign. We’ve divided the prepping process into three stages:

  1. Understanding your business needs
  2. Building a strong foundation
  3. Preparing for agency partnership

At Motion Tactic, a B2B web design agency, we work with you to develop an innovative website that also supports your marketing strategy and makes stakeholders happy!

12 Steps To Take Before Your B2B Website Redesign

Stage 1: Understanding Your Business Needs

Understanding your business needs before redesigning a new website will ensure that the new website aligns with the company goals and effectively targets your audience.

1. Define Your Goals and Objectives

What do you want the website to do? Look better is not an answer! Clearly determine your goals for the website and how the redesign project can support the company’s business objectives and marketing strategy. Do you have a sales team? How can the website generate leads that convert. Do you want to improve brand awareness and use other marketing channels to drive your audience to the website? Many times clients come to us saying their website is embarrassing and they don’t direct anyone to the site. Imagine how many leads they are missing!

Defining clear goals is vital to the start of your B2B website redesign project. Otherwise, you risk spending over budget and ending up with a new site that looks good but is not functional for the business. Example of tangible goals and objectives for your website redesign might include:

Increased Lead Generation: Attracting potential customers and capturing their information to convert website visitors to leads. This may be accomplished through bottom-of-funnel SEO pages, email capture for resource access, and clear CTA’s to learn more.

  • Brand Credibility: Establishing the company’s brand identity and expertise within the industry can be accomplished through a new website that conveys brand elements while also featuring though leadership pieces.
  • Customer Engagement: Providing valuable content and interactive UX that engages customers and conveys your company as an expert in your industry.
  • Market Expansion: Reaching new markets and demographics by showcasing your company’s services and solutions. Often client’s come to us because they need a new website before a trade show.
  • Improved Visibility on Search Engines: Utilizing modern web design and SEO strategies to meet the requirements of search engines like Google, Yahoo, and MSN. This includes optimizing website structure, content, and user experience to generate clicks and convert visitors into leads.

Effectively outlining your goals will likely include engaging stakeholders, including the sales and marketing team, executive team, and maybe customer service staff. Understanding their needs and expectations will create a successful website.

2. Identify Your Target Audience

Determining what the target audience helps inform the layout of the website, content, and interactive elements. When looking for a B2B product or service, buyers are looking for pricing information, valuable insights, product and services differentiators, a solution for their needs and fast responses.

Creating a detailed buyer persona before employing a website agency for your B2B website redesign can give you much greater clarity in determining the style, information needed, the layout, and types of pages for the new website.

B2B companies are often well-versed in the types of customers that use their products and services but it’s alway valuable to dive deeper into why these customers buy. Here’s some questions to help you get started creating detailed personas of your ideal buyers:

  • What’s their personal background?
  • What’s their role at the company?
  • What does the company do?
  • What is their immediate goal?
  • What industry do they work in?
  • What materials or publications do they consult for buying information?
  • How do they source vendors for their company?
  • How does their team measure progress?
  • What are some challenges they are currently facing?
  • How do they become aware of the problem they are facing?
  • How do they become aware of the solution your company provides?

Remember that B2B buyers are usually groups of coworkers or stakeholders working together to decide on solution. The buying process can be long and drawn out and buyers need information. The company website is a vital tool to the sales team. By identifying your core buyer personas, you can help those buyers make better decisions by tailoring your site architecture to fit their needs while supporting marketing strategies by clearly identifying the target audience.

3. Map Out the Buying Process

After identifying your buyer personas, mapping out the buying process and how it relates to your website architecture will ensure you have a user friendly site that generates quality leads. The B2B buying process relies on awareness, consideration, and decision. Different content on your website will help support these buying stages and you must think about how these stages can be explained through the website architecture. Asking these kinds of questions will help you figure out what content needs to be included in the web design elements:

  • How do customers typically learn about your product?
  • At what point in the buying process do they first visit your website?
  • What is role at their company does the buyer hold?
  • What questions should be answered and where?
  • How do we make critical information easily accessible but not overwhelming?
  • What content should be pushed out through web pages?
  • What will the role be of your website to support each one of the three stages in the buying process?

The buying process relies on awareness, consideration, and decision. Different forms of content on your B2B website, such as ebooks, white papers, case studies, blogs, and technical resources, will need help support these parts of the buying stages. Mapping out this process will make your content marketing efforts make a difference by ensuring they resonate with your buyer personas.

4. Competitive Analysis

Conducting some market research on B2B competitors in the same space as your company and going through their websites can help you determine industry best practices and the type of design elements you should consider for your own site. Analyzing competitors UX design in particular can provide better opportunities to serve site visitors, avoid common functionality issues, and provide a competitive web design.

Start with listing out 5 to ten competitors in your space and consider both direct and indirect competitors. By looking at both, you can see how companies in the exact same space as you serve the same customers and how their web design elements cater to visitors. Looking at indirect competitors can also give you insight into how they are doing things differently and can bring a fresh perspective to your B2B website redesign.

Stage 2: Build a Strong Foundation

After understanding your business needs, diving deeper into the framework, brand identity, and content strategy of the new site can help you build a strong foundation before finding the right website marketing agency.

5. Website Architecture

Planning out your navigation and the layout of the pages you want to include in the new structure can create a more user friendly experience. Understand the current website layout by developing a site map. Breaking the entire website down into a site map can really help you dig into what is and isn’t working and where you need to add additional pages, making the web design process a lot easier. This is also a great opportunity to evaluate if you need any third party tools or would like to change which tools your B2B website currently uses, whether it’s a CMS or HR platform. Determine where you want these automated tools to live on the site.

If you are a SaaS company that creates a lot of technical resources on how to use and implement its products, perhaps you want to prioritize content marketing and develop a dedicated resources center on the new site. Or maybe you are a consulting firm that wants to emphasize hiring. Creating a dedicated careers page with comprehensive benefits and images of the team doing fun activities would be a great idea for this situation. These would need to be considered for how you lay out the architecture of your B2B website. Remember, website visitors want to learn more, make it easy for them with clear architecture that enforces the company’s value proposition. Prioritize user engagement when deciding on the website architecture of your B2B website.

6. Develop a Content Strategy for Search Engine Optimization

Once you determine the key pages needed for the new website project, it is much easier to evaluate which content you should include. However, developing an effective content strategy is one of the most time consuming parts of prepping for a B2B website design. Here’s some steps to get you started:

Audit Your Content: Go through what you currently have and determine what is working. Group similar types of content together and decide if you need to create some forms of content that you want to feature on the site. For example, do you have lots of blogs but really want to feature case studies? Start writing those case studies now! Also consider which types of content you want to feature prominently across the site, determine how often you want to come out with new content and what that process looks like. Types of content to consider include white papers, resources, case studies, client testimonials, blogs, press releases, and webinars. Determining which content to include will affect your overall B2B website design.

  • Review Keyword Analytics: Gain insight into what is currently working through Google Analytics and Google Search Console. Figure out which keywords are bringing website visitors and prioritize those words in the content you create for the new B2B website. Emphasize the importance of search engine optimization in driving website traffic and improving visibility. Hiring SEO experts to implement on-page and off-page strategies can help achieve sustainable rankings on search engines like Google.
  • Consider Other B2B Websites: Revisit the websites you decided were competitors and dig into how they lay out their content and how it affects their web design. There are multiple ways to organize content on a website. Some companies have content all in one web page while others break it out by content type. Consider what other B2B companies in the same industry are doing to see how they encourage user engagement.
  • Engage Stakeholders: Discuss with leadership what forms of content they envision being on the website. Ask the right questions to understand what they believe the website should do and communicate. Aligning on content priorities will make web design go smoothly.
  • Analyze Content Ecosystems: A new site is a great opportunity to expand your content marketing strategy. Consider if there are other areas of the business that create content that hasn’t always been shared. Perhaps these functional areas don’t yet create content but doing so would be a fantastic opportunity to gain quality leads.

7. Brand Messaging Strategy

Defining your brand voice and messaging before determining B2B website design is incredibly important and will make copy writing for web pages much easier. Once the web developer has created your site pages, you will discover that the entire site needs to be filled with words! If you do not have a brand identity already determined, this will be a difficult task.

Tips to determine your messaging strategy:

  • Outline your mission, vision, values
  • Outline what you are and what you are not
  • Decide on your tone of voice. Are you professional or laid back? Free spirited or detail oriented?
  • Determine a messaging guide for all copy associated with your business – What capitalization style do you use? How do you use commas? How do you write out the company name?
  • Write some taglines that reflect who you are and your core values while also conveying your key differentiators

Usually a B2B website redesign is started because a company realizes it needs a facelift. Figuring your brand’s message will ensure that your redesign aligns with the company’s goals and values while accurately reflecting overall marketing communications. Completing these steps before employing a website agency will also make it easier to convey what you are looking for in a website to the agency you choose to work with.

8. Visual Brand Identity

Your website is one of the most prominent marketing assets for conveying your visual brand identity. A good website agency will help you determine the style of the new website while making your brand come alive. However, there are some visual aspects of the brand that you should contemplate before starting a redesign project to make sure you are capturing and converting visitors while also ensuring the web design includes the visual aspects you want.

Visual brand elements to consider for your website redesign:

  • Make sure you have a distinct logo for your brand
  • View other websites or competitors to get an idea of shapes and key elements you might want to use for in the redesign
  • Determine which font styles you like and what fits with your brand messaging
  • Determine which types and styles of high quality images you want to feature across the entire site – perhaps you need to do a team photoshoot!

Having your team on the same page before employing a website design agency will help determine the style of the new site. But don’t get too hung up on this process because any decent agency will work on this part of the project with you! Working through establishing the messaging and visual identity will make it easier to have consistent branding throughout the site.

Stage 3: Preparing for the Agency Partnership

9. Decide On A Budget

Deciding on a budget before working with a web design agency is crucial for ensuring that the project stays on track and meets your business needs. The first step is to assess your overall financial situation and determine how much you are willing and able to invest in your B2B website design. Consider the purpose of the website, the complexity of the features you need, and the expected return on investment (ROI). For instance, a simple informational site will generally cost less than a complex e-commerce platform with custom functionalities. A website created with templates by a freelancer will cost less than one created by web designers with custom layouts and animations. It’s also helpful to research the typical costs of similar projects within your industry to get a ballpark figure.

Once you have a rough estimate, it’s important to allocate your budget wisely. Divide the budget into different categories such as design, web development, content creation, and ongoing maintenance. This helps in understanding where the majority of your funds will go and ensures that you don’t overlook critical aspects of the B2B website design. Keep a buffer for unexpected expenses that might arise during the web development process, such as adding in more functionality or custom web design elements.

Communicate your budget clearly to potential agencies and discuss their pricing structures to see if they align with your financial plan. A transparent discussion about costs upfront will help avoid misunderstandings and ensure a smoother collaboration. Any decent agency should be transparent while also working to provide a solution that stays within budget.

10. Develop A Project Brief

Developing a project brief before hiring a website agency for a B2B website design is crucial for ensuring that the project aligns with your business goals and expectations. Clearly pinpointing your goals to provide the agency with a clear direction and help them understand what success looks like for your business. Additionally, outline the specific challenges your current website faces and how these impact your business. This context allows the agency to craft solutions that directly address your pain points.

Next, identify your target audience and their needs. For a B2B website, understanding your audience is critical since your website must cater to other businesses and decision-makers. Include detailed buyer personas in your project brief, highlighting their roles, preferences, and the problems they seek to solve through your products or services.

Outline the scope of the project and your budget constraints. Be specific about the features and functionalities you need, such as CRM integration, e-commerce capabilities, or content management systems. Providing a comprehensive list of requirements helps the agency estimate the project’s complexity and resources needed. Discuss your budget openly to ensure that the proposals you receive are realistic and within your financial limits. Additionally, set a timeline for the project, including key milestones and a desired completion date, to manage expectations and ensure timely delivery.

11. Research Website Agencies

Researching website agencies before hiring one for B2B website design is a critical step to ensure you partner with an agency that meets your specific needs and can deliver a successful project. Start by identifying agencies with a proven track record in B2B website design. Look for case studies and portfolios on their websites, focusing on projects that are similar in scope and industry to your own. Pay attention to the results they achieved for their clients, such as improved user experience, increased lead generation, or enhanced site functionality.

Next, seek out client testimonials and reviews. Websites like Clutch, Google Reviews, and LinkedIn can provide valuable feedback from previous clients. Look for consistent themes in the reviews, such as the agency’s communication style, project management skills, and overall client satisfaction.

12. Prepare for Agency Interviews

It’s also important to evaluate the agency’s approach to project management and communication. A well-defined process and clear communication channels are essential for the success of any web design project. During your initial consultations, ask about their project management methodology, how they handle revisions and feedback, and the frequency and format of progress updates. Effective communication ensures that your project stays on track and that any issues are promptly addressed.

When meeting with agencies, ask questions about your concerns. Develop a list of questions to ask the agencies to ensure you are getting the answers you need to make a decision. A B2B website redesign is a big investment, make sure you are taking the right steps before making a decision.

Conclusion

Embarking on a B2B website redesign is a significant undertaking that requires careful planning and strategic decision-making. Understanding your business needs, building a strong foundation, and preparing for agency partnership before employing a vendor can ensure the project’s success and vastly increase your satisfaction with the final product of the website redesign.

At Motion Tactic, we are dedicated to helping B2B companies create engaging, results-driven websites and SEO content strategies to reach more of their target audience. Book your discovery session now to start your B2B website redesign project with clarity and guidance.