What makes a great B2B website?
How to create a website that both visitors and Google love
When someone is searching for a business online, Google does its best to match your search query with the best match. Through its algorithms, it tries to deliver the best answer for your question. But does it look for the same things that a visitor looks for on the site? Let’s take a look at the qualities that make a B2B website great, in the eyes of Google and site visitors.
Credible
Google looks at customer reviews, forum discussions, and independent expert reviews to rank your site. It scans for about us, contact, and customer service information and matches it across the web to make sure everything is consistent. Users look for many of the same things, but also look for a recognizable logo and branding, images and products that they know, and an overall look and feel that confirm they are in the right place.
Trustworthy
Google prefers sites that are not filled with keywords, disrupting ads, and affiliate links. Google reviews reports of fake news or user reports of problems with Google Search and lowers ranking for those sites. A site with longevity, that has a long history of quality content, will increase Google’s trust. Site visitors do a more subjective analysis of your site, spotting misleading titles, text-heavy pages, and false-sounding claims, in order to determine their trust level.
Professional
Google rewards fast speeds, streamlined code, and mobile-friendly sites, created following web-standard best practices. 60% of Google’s traffic comes from mobile devices, so providing both good desktop and mobile user experiences using responsive design has never been more important to Google. Visitors are looking for impactful graphics, clear navigation, and valuable content, organized to deliver an optimal experience for visitors on desktop and mobile. If visitors get distracted trying to figure out how to use your site, or they can’t see it on a small screen, they will look elsewhere for a solution.
Welcoming
In addition to text content, a website should include quick-loading graphics and videos. Since ads are sometimes crucial for covering the cost of creating quality content, they are not necessarily a negative ranking factor for Google. However, visitors prefer ads that are not disruptive and distracting, and the ads should be related to the main content on the page. The design should be unique, accessible, and interesting.
Informative
Google tries to determine if it’s delivering the correct results to satisfy a user’s query by looking for low bounce rates when a visitor reaches a page, visitors continuing deeper into a site, or spending more time on a page. A user looks for relevant information that they can easily find. Your site should help visitors navigate to the information you want them to find, whether it’s product information, your blog, or a premium content download. Point them in the direction of the answers they seek, and even try to answer your visitors’ questions before they ask them.
Compatible
The final decision about whether your businesses are compatible is one that can only be answered by a site visitor, not by Google. The question of whether you would like to do business with another company is subjective and includes questions such as whether you will like working with the company, whether your business values match, whether your company vision and passions are similar. Site visitors look for testimonials, visual look and feel, copy, images, and more to make the final assessment of whether your businesses are a match.