So let’s look at some things your website could and should be doing for you.

1. Keep you open for business 24 x 7 x 365.

A website never has to take a break or go to sleep. It doesn’t need vacations!

Your website should be your hardest-working employee.

Your website should be rocking it when it comes to lead generation and sales. But the extent to which it can attract, facilitate interaction, and earn conversions depends on whether you faithfully execute the points I will be highlighting below.

Corrective Action: If your website isn’t your sales and lead-generation leader, fix it or get one that will do the job!

2. Give a history lesson and brag a bit! 

Your website could show how great your brand is by displaying past work, achievements, projects community service, and more. It could display your work in a portfolio. It can give customers a reason to connect with you more on a personal level by showing a history of your brand’s timeline and the ups and downs of your business up until this point.

Corrective Actions:

• Put the story of how and what got you into the business onto your “about us” page.
• What about your business or industry gets you up in the morning? Write about your passions because emotional content connects.
• Create a portfolio page that shows your company’s most important or meaningful work and speaks (with pictures and words) to the types of clients who are the best match for your company.
• Showcase the positive things your company and your employees do and achieve.

Learn more regarding “About Us” pages.

Check out our About Us Case Study.

3. Put your B2B website on the map. 

If people aren’t coming to your business’s physical location, it’s at least partly because they aren’t finding your website – and your business – online. Assuming your brand is relevant and a market exists for its products and services, if your website isn’t putting you on the map with your target market then you have a problem.

Either your SEO (search engine optimization) isn’t working or wasn’t set up or you don’t have enough content to rank in search results. It could be a mixture of both.

To fix it:

• Make sure you have a location page on your website so customers can literally find you.
• Have your website analyzed to find the problems with your SEO.
• Add more content.   Hire freelance writers or content creators to work adding web pages and high-quality content on your blog.

Did you know that small business websites with blogs get 126 percent more lead growth than small business websites that don’t have blogs? Your website could generate leads for you.

Companies that post consistently to their blog have 434 percent more indexed pages. Websites with more indexed pages get more leads because Google rewards them for having a website with consistent updates and high-quality content over time.

Check out our location page case study.

Learn how to make an Excellent Location Page.

4. Build your authority in the market place.

Your website could help you build authority as a thought leader, industry leader, expert resource, speaker and all-around professional.  Most B2B buyers (96% to be exact) want content from industry leaders according to the Demand Gen Report.

The content on your website demonstrates your expertise, prowess, knowledge, skills, abilities and so on. It’s the content that gives a site visitor the confidence that you know what you’re talking about. That you do business the right way. That you’re going to be there for them when they need you, or when something goes wrong.

If your site isn’t giving customers that message, it is time to make some corrections.

Corrective Actions:

• Blog 2 or more times weekly about topics relevant to your industry and your target audiences.
  • NOTE:  These will rarely be self-promotional.
  • They should be mostly topical. Your goal is to be the thought leader, not the sales leader.
• Add web pages to your site that clearly communicate your company’s unique points of differentiation.
  • What makes your company (or your brand) uniquely qualified to solve specific problems?
• Add an FAQ page to your website with any/all of the most frequently asked and/or most important questions customers ask.

5. Start conversations with prospects. 

Once the content has helped you attract your target audience to your website, your website could help you convert qualified site visitors, turning them from prospects into buyers/clients/customers/subscribers, etc.

This doesn’t happen by osmosis, however. Conversion occurs because your website facilitates it.

Corrective Action:

• Use forms throughout your website to give site visitors a chance to take action right away.
  • Actions could be to buy, subscribe, request information, request a quote, schedule a consultation, etc.

6. Persuade and motivate site visitors to take action. 

People research online before buying. One Hubspot stat notes that about half of consumers read 3 to 5 pieces of content before taking the first step toward making a purchase. After reading recommendations on a blog, 61 percent of U.S. online consumers made a purchase.

Things to do:

• Use forms in your blog posts to stimulate prospect interaction as well as buying actions.
• Use product and service landing pages with forms to tell site visitors who are ready to take action exactly what they should do next.
  • fill out a form
  • buy something
  • subscribe to a newsletter
  • call our company
• Infuse blog posts and web pages with calls to action,
  • Always make it clear what you want the site visitor to do next.

Learn how to make a clear call to action.

7. Increase customer retention.

Yes, websites are an effective way to generate leads and sales, but it should also be one of your most effective customer retention tools.

Your website should be facilitating customer service 24 hours a day, too.

Did you know that 67 percent of consumers list bad customer experience as the primary reason for leaving and doing business elsewhere?  Your website should give direction to customers who need your attention, support, help or who need you to take action because something went wrong. Your website can be there at 2 AM when your customer can’t figure out the instructions, or something broke, or something else has pushed frustration to peak levels.

Things to Do:

• Make sure your website has clearly defined sections of content that are dedicated to the customer experience and customer service.
  • Nothing says “we could care less” to the customer when everything on your website is a sales pitch.

If You Need Help

Our team at UpStreamMarketing.net would love to help you.  Contact Us to discuss ways to improve your B2B website and turn it into a sales machine.