Is your website doing its job?

What is the purpose of a website for a B2B SaaS tech company? Is it a lead generation tool, a credibility source, a platform to educate your buyers, or a business card for Sales? The answer is, all of the above. A website has multiple functions and goals, and sometimes we forget this. This is not a post about SEO keywords or call to action buttons, but about the overall thought process behind deciding what content to put on your website, and how.

What is a good website? What is a great website? Well, it depends on what you are trying to accomplish. For a product-led company, a website is where buyers sign up for a trial of the product and hopefully convert into paying customers. For a tech company with SMB clients and a transactional sales model with short cycles, a website is primarily a lead generation tool where buyers do their research, get convinced and enter relatively quickly into the sales funnel. For a tech company with enterprise clients and 6 to 8 month sales cycles, a website needs to be a wealth of information to support the various stages of the long buying cycle, perhaps even providing a personalized experience by segment of customer, by solution area or by use case. So while a good website provides information on your products, some case studies or success stories, and has enough calls to action to drive some next steps, a great website is one that truly understands the buyer journey, the information buyers look for along the way and provides a reason for buyers to keep coming back to the website as a source of information, thought leadership, educational content and resources to help them make the right decision about the solution they need.

I have often seen websites overly focusing on product information and not providing enough use case or solutions information. For example, if your product works for the Banking, Healthcare and Manufacturing industries, it is important to show how the same product will provide unique value in these different industries. Or if your product caters a single industry but multiple use cases, it is important to call out the different scenarios it can solve for. Buyers are looking for information on a website that helps them relate their specific challenges back to your solution, so it is a huge miss if you simply talk about features and benefits and miss talking about your understanding of your buyer's needs.

Finally, I have seen too many websites that are overly complex. Too much information added at different points in time, leading to information being presented in a non-cohesive, inconsistent manner. Simplification is harder to accomplish than not, but the cleaner your website is in guiding the customer thinking, the faster it will convert the buyer, or at least have them not lose interest in what you are trying to tell them.

Building a website is an iterative process. In fact, a website is a living and breathing entity that needs constant nurturing, freshening up and connection back to your marketing and sales goals. I have revamped many websites to bring sharper positioning, solutions messaging and a strong conversion-oriented approach in place, keeping the buyer persona, journey and needs top of mind. Let's chat if you would like an assessment of your website and a quick brainstorm on how to make it better!