As every year, some important B2B website features will change in 2019, and others will remain the same.
One thing B2B companies should especially keep in mind in 2019 is not to get carried away. Web design firms naturally get caught up in all the latest web design trends. And this year, a lot of cool stuff is going on — broken grid layouts, video backgrounds, particle backgrounds, integrated animations … the list goes on and on.
Exciting visuals can be beneficial on a B2B website, but this is not always the case. Depending on the business you’re in and the type of prospect you’re trying to connect with, a simple, straightforward website is by far the better way to go. B2B buyers are often too busy and too astute to be dazzled by design. Instead, they want to get the information they need as quickly as possible.
That said, there are certain website features that figure to be more essential than ever in 2019:
- Online chat. This is a website trend worth following. Chat is a powerful tool that website visitors want — and you should want it, too, because chat enables you to start a real dialogue and accelerate the lead generation process by days, weeks or months.
- Keywords. Don’t believe everything you hear about keywords being dead. If you’ve got an SEO campaign underway or are contemplating one, keywords are still extremely important. Our extensive lead generation data demonstrates this again and again. Methods of incorporating keywords into webpages have changed, but ignoring them completely is not going to work, in 2019 and probably for many years to come.
- Mobile design. Mobile web usage is clearly too big to ignore no matter what B2B sector you’re in. A responsive website design — one that adjusts page layouts automatically for different size screens — ensures that you will make the best impression possible on mobile and desktop users.
- Simple design. Information overload has reached epidemic levels. With so much noise online, if you can make your website an oasis of calm, you’ve got a great chance of drawing site visitors and keeping them engaged.
If you’re looking for more ideas on how to ramp up the lead generation performance of your B2B website, please contact us. We’re eager to learn more about your situation.