What is a B2B Website?

A B2B website is not your regular shopping website where you virtually cart your favorite items and checkout. 

It is, in fact, a piece of art and science more complex and refined than your regular shopping website that sells stationary or groceries. 

Why? Because B2B websites have businesses, and not individuals, as the end consumer. The B2B buyer’s journey is a lot more complex and involves more stakeholders than B2C.

If you are a B2B business owner and wish to launch a solid B2B website to boost your performance, this detailed guide is a must-read for you. 

We will break down what a B2B website is all about—exploring its ins and outs—and back it up with plenty of real-world B2B website examples.

So, let’s get started. 

What is a B2B website?

A B2B website is simply a website for businesses that sell products or services to other businesses. Think of the point-of-sale software your nearby restaurant business uses to create your bill after a meal. The website of the company selling that software, is an example of a B2B website.

A business to business website contains essential information about the product or service it sells, a detailed description of its features, and a clear call to action to make website visitors try out the product. 

B2B customers need convincing reasons to buy a B2B product so they dig deeper into a product before putting money in. That’s because the business operations of the potential customers depend on B2B products. Therefore, a B2B website may also include competitor comparisons, FAQs, case studies, research, and insights. 

How is a B2B Website Different from a B2C Website

Before we jump in to explore the ingredients to a successful B2B website, let’s first understand the difference between B2B and B2C websites. B2B websites, being complex entities, differ from a typical business to customer website on multiple levels. 

Let’s look at these differences in more detail.

1. Target audience

B2B

B2B websites are designed with businesses as purchase decision-makers in mind. These platforms are not just about selling products or services but also about building business relationships. 

Therefore, the sales funnel is more complex here as compared to a B2C business. The B2B target audience may include industry-specific professionals looking for solutions that will enhance their operations, productivity, or profitability. Typically, they are business owners or CMOs interested in specific solutions that you offer.

Look how the Odoo, an accounting software website, comes with a cool, catchy hero and a free trial and demo button right on top. They address one specified customer base—accountants looking for software for stress-free accounts management. 

They also know an account won’t just buy their software right off the bat. They waste no time offering a free trial so people know about their product. 

This is so important. B2B businesses do not advertise on the TV or radio like your toothpaste brand. Offering free trials helps build brand recognition among their selected customer base.

B2C 

Business to consumer websites aim to attract individual consumers. These sites are all about direct purchases, offering products or services that cater to personal needs or desires. 

The target audience is much broader and may not be industry specific. Think of Netflix and Amazon which provide online streaming services to individual customers. 

The Netflix website is for anyone from accountants to doctors. While it may offer a free trial, it doesn’t speak to one customer base. It’s broad. It’s for all. 

2. Content and messaging

B2B

B2B website content is tailored to convince business owners to convert into paying customers. Therefore, it relies heavily on data, testimonials, and research to illustrate why a specific customer base needs their product in the first place.

The Odoo website content puts the problem into perspective. Accountants waste time working the old way—suggestive of spreadsheets or old software. 

So instead of simply focusing on product specifications, it also highlights what problems it solves, how many B2B SaaS businesses have benefited from it, and more. A little scroll and you will see how Odoo places testimonials in place. They need to convince businesses that they can actually profit from using them.

Apart from the sales-y landing page copy, you’ll find case studies, comprehensive guides, whitepapers, and even success stories to convince potential B2B customers.  

The reason behind all these research-based convincing content centres around long B2B sales cycles. It’s like buying a health insurance policy. Businesses won’t buy unless they are fully convinced the product will actually help them.

Look how Odoo’s blog lists use case articles on businesses that grew using their products.

Xero, a leading accounting software provider, publishes guides tailored for small businesses. These guides educate owners on managing finances, hiring the right talent, etc. In short, by offering valuable content, Xero attracts potential customers and showcases its expertise, ultimately driving lead generation and business growth. 

B2C

B2C websites focus on emotional appeal, showcasing product features and benefits that resonate on a personal level.

Notice how B2C websites make you feel like they're speaking your language. They're masters at pulling your heartstrings, showing off features that make you feel excited, comforted, or just downright happy about their products. 

For instance, Smart Passive Income, a B2C company, uses a podcast and blog and shares financial insights as part of its content marketing. You can see how the placement of posters and the font gives a modern and clean vibe to better engage visitors.

Take a look at Nutella’s website.

For content, it showcases recipe ideas, product info, and inspirational recipes right on the prominently displayed hero banner.

The content is simple. It’s convincing, yes. But it won’t load you with stats, research papers, or testimonials. Who would read a paper before buying a toothbrush, Nutella, soaps, or renting a movie, anyway?

This is not to suggest B2C websites don’t use them. Many might. But not to the extent they do for B2B.

3. Conversion Goals

B2B

The conversion goals of a B2B website revolve around lead generation, scheduling demos, contact requests, signing up for free trials, and ultimately making a product purchase. 

One excellent example of a B2B company providing free trials is Zoho. 

Zoho offers a 15-day free trial to its website visitors. This helps customers experience their solution hands-on, moving them closer to making a purchase decision. The aim here is to initiate a relationship with potential business clients, providing avenues for further discussion of how their solutions can meet the business's needs.

B2C

B2C websites, on the other hand, focus on direct online sales. It prompts new customers to sign up, encouraging the target audience to add products to their cart and complete transactions immediately. The conversion process is structured in a way that helps make purchases quick and easy, catering to consumer's desire for instant gratification.

Why do you Need a Strong B2B Website?

Around 90% of customers believe that the experiences given by a company are as important to them as its products and services. No one would buy your product if your website lags, has bad font or poor quality, or outdated content.  

Therefore, providing a good website experience is crucial, even for B2C sites. 

Plus, there are several benefits a strong B2B website offers. Some of the core ones include:

Increased brand awareness and lead generation

A well-designed B2B website optimized for search engines can significantly boost your brand's visibility online. As a result, your chances of getting quality leads improve. Well-designed B2B websites have fast loading speeds, the right keyword density, user-friendly and valuable content—-all of which means more people spending time on your site—and more revenue. 

Improved customer engagement and brand reputation

A user-friendly website that provides valuable content establishes your brand as an industry leader. This not only improves customer engagement but also enhances your B2B brand's market reputation. Think of the well-researched blog posts from HubSpot that help businesses make crucial decisions. 

Cost-effective marketing and sales tool

Compared to traditional marketing methods, a B2B website is a more cost-effective way to reach your target audience. It works round the clock, promoting your business, products, and services without the ongoing costs associated with print, television, or radio advertising. 

The initial investment in a well-designed website pays dividends by reaching a wider audience at a later stage, ultimately leading to more profits.

Drives business growth and success

Your B2B website isn't just about appearance; it's the backbone of your digital marketing strategy. Beyond its visual appeal, your website plays a crucial role in enhancing brand awareness, engaging customers, and serving as a cost-effective marketing platform. 

By driving traffic, you generate leads and convert them into sales. This makes your business to business website a vital asset for your business's success. You need it to make the target audience sign up for your free trial and to know about your product.

Key Elements that Make a Great B2B Website

Creating a B2B website requires more than just a sleek design. It demands a unique approach to content, user experience, lead generation, and building trust. 

Here are some of the development and design elements to keep in mind to ensure your B2B website not only attracts but engages and converts your target audience effectively.

Great content

Content is the easiest way to connect with your target audience. By offering in-depth resources like white papers, insightful blog posts, and detailed case studies, you position your website as a valuable resource.

Even simple things on your web design like stating your unique value proposition on your home page can help your site visitors. Also, ensure that your landing page sends the right message instantly. A hero image or a hero video that speaks your USP can be a huge game changer.  

You can also leverage social media marketing and nudge in the right visitors who are ready to convert.

This approach not only draws in your audience but also keeps them coming back for more nuggets of wisdom. 

For instance, HubSpot provides a lot of free templates, guides, and informational articles to its visitors. All these resources help users learn something beyond HubSpot’s product offerings.  This, also, helps them understand the company better and makes them feel more connected. 

Look at how the resource section of Hubspot is full of knowledgeable options. Having great content, such as that on HubSpot means that your audience:

• Spends more time on your website
• Builds faith in your brand, and consequently, your product
• Gains valuable information that helps their own business grow
• Your site ranks higher in SERPs

An intuitive user experience (UX) design

A nice, sleek website with clear-cut sections, seamless navigation, clean menus,  and an organized hierarchy is essential to give prospective customers a great UX.

Good UX design is pivotal in crafting websites that captivate visitors. It encompasses branding, usability, and functionality, ensuring a seamless journey for users. 

Shockingly, 88% of individuals deterred by poor website experiences are unlikely to return. Hence, prioritizing user satisfaction through enhanced usability and accessibility is imperative for robust B2B websites.

B2B website examples like HubSpot CRM interface give you an idea of how a clean B2B user experience web design looks like. Its structured layout, with clear sections like 'Deals' and 'Deal Stage', makes navigation a breeze. 

Using contrasting colors to highlight elements such as 'Deal name' and 'Close date' adds to the user-friendly feel of the website. These thoughtful details truly enhance the overall experience.

Now, let’s take a look at some useful tips to keep in mind when integrating UX design elements with your website. 

• A B2B website should be easy to navigate, allowing visitors to find the information they need without hassle. Whether it's your pricing plan page or your home page, the user interference itself should be so smoothly designed that whenever your customer clicks on any button, they get to see a seamless transition to another page. 

A minimalist design is considered a modern design and is often recommended for B2B websites. So you can go with a minimalist design to prevent distractions and enable users to take the desired action right away.

• With the increasing use of smartphones, your B2B website must perform flawlessly on mobile devices. This means fast loading times, responsive design, and accessible information, ensuring a smooth and better experience for users on the go.

• A delay of one second in page loading may result in a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction and a 7% decrease in conversion rate experience. So ensure your pages load quickly and integrations and complex elements don’t make it clunky. Also ensure to use the right payment gateways to make the payment processing quick. 

• Consistent use of colors, fonts, layout, animated graphics, and interactive elements helps build a visually appealing website and makes users comfortable with your B2B website design. This significantly reduces the learning curve and enhances the overall user experience. 

Here’s a great example:  

The color scheme of the Google logo is iconic and intentionally designed to signify playfulness and innovation—attributes that Google likely wants users to associate with their brand. Users instantly identify with it.

Lead generation capabilities

A B2B website must be built to be a lead magnet to increase brand awareness, site visits, and eventually sales. 

Below are a few tips to build a lead generating website for your b2b company.

• Implementing clear calls to action: Your website should guide visitors towards taking action—whether it's contacting your sales team, signing up for a webinar, or downloading a resource. Clear, compelling CTAs are essential for converting visitors into leads very naturally.

Here is an example: CTA’s such as ‘’Download now’’ or ‘’Signup’’ can make it very easy for a professional to take the desired action. Each person who downloads or signs up is a lead. Use powerful email marketing to promote your product.

• Have a lead capture form: Placing lead capture forms in key areas of your website makes it easy for target audiences to exchange their contact information for valuable content like ebooks and white papers.

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You can use such information from visitors who are genuinely interested in your product to generate qualified leads by sending them marketing emails.

Reviews and testimonials

Building trust and credibility through your web design is essential for converting visitors into loyal customers. Reviews and testimonials are important design elements to help you achieve business goals.

Here’s how to establish your website as a credible, trustworthy source:

1. Highlight customer success stories: One good customer review can make others buy, use and ultimately trust your product. Strategically placed testimonials like on the Hero section or on the landing page can do the trick. Highlight good customer reviews like AthenaHealth, a medical SaaS company, does on their website:

2. Expertise through content: Make your site a repository of insightful articles, blog posts, and white papers. Offer potential clients value beyond your product, better than other sites. Many will linger around. A lot of them will know and buy your product offering. 

ClickUp is a great example which offers expert content on a wide range of topics. 

4. Social Proof: Feature customer reviews and ratings on your product pages. Real customer experience validates your offerings and influences decision-making.

By focusing on these very important elements, your B2B website will not only attract the right audience but also engage and convert them more effectively. 

Remember, the goal is to create a comprehensive digital platform that serves as a resource, guide, and solution provider for your target businesses.

B2B Website Development Considerations

You now know what a great B2B website is. We’re sure you want a great one for your own business. Developing a B2B website that stands out requires a blend of technical expertise, strategic planning, and a deep understanding of your target audience's needs.

Let's dig more into some critical considerations for B2B website development.

A. Web development expertise

The foundation of a successful B2B website lies in its functionality, usability, and ability to engage and convert potential business clients. This is where web development skills come into play, serving as the cornerstone for creating a platform that not only meets but exceeds user expectations. 

Proficient web development ensures that a B2B website is fast, secure, scalable, and capable of evolving with the business and its digital marketing strategies.

Web development encompasses a range of technical skills, including coding, web design, user experience (UX) optimization, and backend systems integration. 

For a B2B website, these skills are critical as they facilitate a seamless user journey, and support complex functionalities like integration with CRM and other business systems for lead tracking and management.

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When building or revamping your B2B website, you typically face two main options: opting for in-house development or outsourcing to a design agency. Let’s see what’s better.

• In-house development: Keeping web development in-house allows for greater control over the project and direct communication with the development team. It can benefit companies with unique, ongoing web development needs and the resources to support a dedicated team. 

However, it requires significant investment in hiring, training, and retaining skilled developers, designers, and UX specialists. If you’re a small business or one looking to scale, in-house development may prove a bit too costly.

• Outsourcing to agencies: Outsourcing web development to specialized agencies offers access to a broad range of expertise and resources, often at a lower cost than maintaining an in-house team. 

Amply help your site get more attention and increase your website conversion rate. Agencies such as ours bring diverse experience from working across industries, which can inject innovative ideas and best practices into your project. The challenge lies in selecting the right partner and establishing effective communication to ensure your vision and business objectives are accurately translated into the web development process.

Regardless of the path you choose, the goal remains consistent: to leverage web development skills to build a functional, engaging B2B website that drives business growth.

B. Search engine optimization (SEO)

SEO drives 1,000%+ more traffic than organic social media. Therefore, it is a critical component for any website aiming to increase its visibility, attract more traffic, and enhance user engagement. 

When it comes to a B2B website, where the decision-making process is often longer and more complex, SEO plays an important role in ensuring that your site appears prominently on the search engine results page for your business to grow.

Some effective practices you can use to get started with SEO include:

• Working on keyword research: Identify specific terms and phrases your target customers use (through Google's Keyword Planner or tools SEMrush) when searching for your products or services. For B2B websites, this involves focusing on long-tail keywords that reflect your target audience’s specific needs and pain points. 

• Go for on-page optimization: On-page optimization involves optimizing individual web pages to rank higher in SERPs. This is done by adding title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and developing a solid, structured content strategy. Ensuring that each page clearly communicates its value proposition and includes calls-to-action (CTAs) can also improve conversion rates.

• Build a solid content strategy: High-quality, informative content that clearly states your value proposition is what makes a good content strategy. For B2B companies, this means creating high-quality content that satiates your customers’ curiosity and calms down their woes. Write and develop well-researched blog posts, white papers, case studies, and how-to guides to not just improve SEO but also establish your company as a thought leader.
• Never ditch technical SEO: When developing your website, don’t forget the technical part, such as its mobile-friendliness, loading speed, and the structure of your URLs, all of which significantly impact SEO performance. 

• Backlink building: Backlinks build relevance and bring more people to your site. It also tells search engines like Google your content is credible. Acquiring high-quality backlinks from reputable sites within your industry can significantly boost your site's authority and search rankings. Guest blogging, creating shareable infographics, and participating in industry forums can be effective strategies for building backlinks.

• Local SEO: For B2B companies serving specific geographic areas, local SEO can help attract local businesses. Optimizing for local search involves ensuring your business is correctly listed in local directories; optimizing your Google My Business profile can be really effective for registering your business.

Build Your Lead Generation B2B Website with Amply

Choosing the right partner for developing your B2B website can make a significant difference in how effectively your site performs in lead generation. With Amply, you're not just getting web development services; you're gaining a partner who understands the intricacies of B2B operations and how to leverage digital platforms to achieve your business objectives. 

Whether it's through enhancing your website's user experience, integrating advanced functionalities, or optimizing your site for search engines, Amply's expertise can help you create a B2B website that not only looks great but also works hard for your business.

Amply's expertise in creating tailored B2B platforms has enabled businesses to enhance their online presence significantly, smooth down their operations, and improve their lead generation efforts.