What Do Website Visitors Want? It’s Not What B2B Brands Are Giving Them [New Research]

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We have planned and designed hundreds of websites. Every day, we live in the world of website features, content and designs. That’s because we’re a web design company! But most digital marketers have been through the process at least once by now.

As brands, we know what we want our websites to say and do.

As visitors, we know that websites often fail to give us what we’re looking for.

Why the gap? Because these are often two different things: what brands want to show on their website and what visitors want to find on that website.

With the hopes to discover the specific gaps, we designed a dual survey that asked B2B buyers (website visitors) and B2B brands (website contributors) what they think is important.

Together with research firm Ascend2, we got 200+ responses from each group. Today we are sharing our findings and analysis.

What do website visitors want …and what do marketers give them?

The first question was the most general. Here is how it was posed to the two audiences:

• B2B website visitors: Which of the following CHARACTERISTICS of a marketing website have the most influence on your purchase decisions?
• B2B website contributors: Which of the following CHARACTERISTICS contribute most to the success of your marketing website?

They could choose up to three options from a list of high-level website attributes. The data shows some alignment, but also big differences:

Visitors to B2B websites are there for a reason. We often say “there’s a true story in the life of every visitor to every webpage.” They have questions and they’re looking for quick answers.

The data show that visitors value quick access (easy navigation, visuals) to relevant, high quality information (answers, advice, insights).

The majority of both visitors and marketers responded that easy access to relevant answers is the key characteristic of a website.

Far fewer visitors listed beautiful design or team bios as the top three characteristics. These are less likely to be a top concern for visitors. But visitors were twice as likely as the marketers to choose beauty.

Of course, design still matters.

Now, look at the marketer’s perspective. Marketers were far more likely to list brand story and social proof as one of their top three options. Of course, these are important to marketers because they can improve conversion rates.

…but our visitors aren’t worried about our conversion rates.

What are the top B2B website features, according to both visitors and marketers?

For the next question, we get into the specifics. Here are the questions posed to both groups:

• B2B website visitors: Which of these website FEATURES do you find most useful?
• B2B website contributors: Which of these website FEATURES contribute most to the success of your website?

They could choose up to three options from a list of common website features. The data shows far less alignment than the previous section. You can almost feel the tension between the website and its visitor.

Visitors want features that help them get to information quickly: search boxes, chat and social media buttons. I agree that it’s important to give visitors easy access to answers, but I don’t necessarily recommend the use of these specific features on B2B websites.

In fact, I don’t generally recommend any of the features that visitors say they like in this report.

Continue to the full article.