Your B2B ecommerce website is finally live and you’re ready to hit the ground running with online sales. To gain customers, drive conversions and generate revenue in the digital world, your site also has to be optimized.
This begs the question: what does website optimization mean for a B2B ecommerce site? Essentially, it’s about using various tools and strategies to improve your site performance, increase traffic, create a positive customer experience, reduce your bounce rate and ultimately sell more products.
With 25 years in the industry and countless B2B ecommerce website builds, our team at Guidance has the knowledge and experience to help your business thrive online. Below, we outline five tips your company should consider when optimizing its B2B ecommerce website, and use Guidance’s Farmer Boy case study as an example of these principles.
Short for Search Engine Optimization, SEO is the process of helping a website rank in search results on Google and other search engines. Whether you’re familiar with SEO or the concept is totally new, now is the time to really dive in if you want to develop a great ecommerce strategy.
When your company has a good SEO strategy, it tells the customer (and search engines) that your site is useful, relevant and trustworthy. In other words, SEO is a pillar of online marketing for all entities, including B2B businesses.
In the marketing realm, a call-to-action (CTA) is a statement that’s supposed to entice or motivate people to respond immediately. With B2B ecommerce, the goal is usually to prompt your customer to make a purchase. It might also call on them to take advantage of a sale, request a free quote on a custom order, watch a video tutorial, or contact you for more information.
As a B2B company, CTAs are a critical component of your website optimization. We suggest including a call-to-action at least once per page. This includes your company landing page, about page, blog posts, contact page, category pages and each individual product description page. Calls-to-action are typically placed at the end of a piece of content, kind of like a sign-off. You might want to use A/B testing to see which CTAs are most effective.
Another thing you’ll need to consider is mobile optimization. Just because you’re in the B2B market, don’t assume your customers are only visiting your website through a desktop browser. Around 70% of B2B search queries are made on smartphones or tablets, and mobile engagement drives upwards of 40% of revenue for B2B internet retailers.
The importance of a mobile-friendly ecommerce website shouldn’t be overlooked. When an existing or potential customer visits your site through a mobile device, it should be easy to read and navigate. If they need to zoom in to read your web page copy, can’t find what they’re looking for, or are unable to click the button they need, you can’t expect them to stay long. It’s in your best interest to make the customer experience as smooth as possible.
Whether it’s blog posts, instructional videos, how-to-guides, whitepapers, or infographics, educational content can make a big impact on your website’s optimization. Data shows that a B2B customer is more likely to make a purchase from your business after consuming some of its content. And as we mentioned above, it will increase the average time people spend on your site, which boosts your SEO.
Educational content or “self-service” has been one of the top trends seen in B2B ecommerce. It may not be a new concept, but according to Accenture, most buyers have completed 57% of the purchase process before ever meeting with a sales rep. Giving potential customers the ability to do their own research helps them to have a grasp of the product, allowing them to feel more confident about their choice, and therefore more likely to purchase.