On-going organic traffic growth, low bounce rates, high demand and engagement - those are all attributes of a quality website. But how many enterprise marketers can say that about their corporate websites?
The logic goes as follows - the bigger the budget, the better the website. Unfortunately for many enterprise companies that's not the case - regardless of the budget, many of the corporate websites out there are rather uninspiring and forgettable.
In the following article we will explore the crimes and punishments of bad enterprise website designs and offer examples of how other B2B companies are doing it right.
Crime & Punishment #1:
Bad Content Architecture & Lack of Call-to-Action Buttons
Crime
The first rule of a quality website - if your visitors can't figure out who you are and what you do within the first few seconds upon landing on your website, you are doing something wrong. Something terribly wrong.
Punishment
When your website has bad data architecture and lacks Call-to-Action buttons to convert your visitors into leads, you will most likely get high bounce rates and low conversion rates.
Solution: DOOR3 is a good example of a company website done right - the design is clear, user-friendly and has great data architecture. The first thing you see when you land on the website is a clearly defined description that explains what the company does, followed by Call-to-Action button that directs visitors to a solution page.
Crime & Punishment #2:
Lack of User-Centric Approach
Crime
One of the most important components of a well-designed website is connecting your visitors to the information they are looking for. Your monthly traffic isn't filled with sales-ready leads - most of your visitors are looking for a particular information and the design and usability of your website needs to ease the process of finding it.
Punishment
If your website visitors are experiencing difficulties finding the information they are looking for, your bounce rates will sky rocket and you are in for a huge lead generation loss.
Solution
Dootrix's website is a good example of information accessibility. As a consultancy firm that offers enterprise software consultancy and development, Dootrix made the information about their work and services accessible and easy to find.
Crime and Punishment #3:
Lacking Engaging Content
Crime
Remember the cocktail bar rule? If you talk exclusively about yourself, people will get bored and irritated. Same applies for websites - good design isn't enough to keep your visitors, you need to offer value through informative, educational, or entertaining content.
Punishment
The lack of engaging content on your website will soon drive your visitors away, which will have an impact on your lead generation.
Solution
DeskCentre is a leading interior design company that specializes in designing compelling interiors for businesses. In terms of content engagement, they don't purely rely on impressive visual content. The navigation menu offers a variety of engaging content possibilities - from case studies, a blog to their resource library that enables visitors to get a hold of numerous eBooks, videos, brochures etc.
Crime and Punishment #4:
No Demand, No Lead Generation
Crime
The lack of engaging content will impact your demand and lead generation efforts. And in today's world, blog posts aren't enough - you will need to produce different types of content for the different stages of the buying funnel.
Punishment
Without effective demand and lead generation, you sales team will struggle to close deals and this will have a serious impact on your revenue, regardless of how big your company is. If the last decade of economic instability told us a lesson - nobody is too big to fail.
Solution
Personalisation, personalisation and personalisation! Yes, having engaging and high-quality content collateral is great, but content delivery is just as important as content generation. You will need to ensure that your content gets delivered to the right people at the right time. Tracking user behaviour and offering compelling content assets, based on their previous downloads will help you move your leads down the funnel. Ask any professional inbound marketing agency and they will teach you the importance of mapping content.
Crime and Punishment #5:
No Mobile Optimization
Crime
In a world where more and more people are accessing information through mobile devices, not optimizing your website for mobile is not just a crime. It's a sin.
Punishment
Websites that are not optimized for mobile are most likely loosing on some valuable leads - if a visitor is accessing your website via mobile device and your website doesn't offer a compelling user experience, they will leave your site and forget about it.
Solution
Optimize your website for mobile and incorporate mobile lead generation. MailChimp is a great example of website optimized for mobile. With big buttons and clear calls-to-action, Mail Chimp’s mobile site a joy to use. The home screen is adapted to work as a funnel for signing up, logging in, getting pricing or looking at features.
