B2B Business Website: Features, Key Functions and Examples

To improve conversions and establish strong relationships with customers, a website is an essential element.

But how should a website be made for a B2B company?

In a period in which online sales are experiencing significant growth, with a forecast increase of 18.9% from 2024 to 2030 (source: Grand View Research), it would be a serious strategic mistake not to invest in

Technology such as AI

Digital infrastructure such as a website

Online marketing with lead generation and sales campaigns.

The incredible synergy between technological contributions and technical expertise must therefore be directed towards a solid and well-structured digital presence, allowing companies to remain competitive in an increasingly fast and digital market.

This brings us to the importance of creating a B2B website for your company that not only attracts users, but converts them into new customers.

Let’s see what considerations should be made regarding the structure, content and design (and not only) to be able to create a site that facilitates sales and improves the company’s image.

In the second section of this article we will also see examples of B2B sites from which to draw inspiration.

What is a B2B website?

A B2B website is an online platform specifically designed and developed to sell goods and services to other companies.

Unlike a traditional showcase site, it is distinguished by a specialized interface designed to facilitate the purchasing process through detailed information, highlighted offers, technical specifications and, of course, a direct contact form to establish a communication channel with sales representatives.

The fundamental concept in building a B2B website is to use a tool that works 24 hours a day to promote your company’s services and products.

B2B e-commerce is a rapidly expanding reality. In the past, this mode was considered exclusive to sales to end consumers, nowadays even the relationship between companies has become digital and where the service or product does not require in-depth consultancy, it can be sold through an E-commerce, as Alibaba does for example.

Company Website: Differences Between B2B and B2C

The B2B and B2C spheres differ in several aspects:

• target: in B2B, multiple decision makers are involved in the purchasing decision, while in B2C sales, only one customer is usually involved.
• purchasing process: in B2B, the decision that leads to the purchase is more complex and therefore the sales cycle itself is longer.
• customer relationships: in B2B, the focus is on long-term relationships and it is therefore important to create a relationship of trust with customers. In B2C, the focus is often on immediate sales.
• type of content: B2B customers look for in-depth content including case studies, reports and technical information. In B2C, the focus is on the benefits of the products or services and greater weight is given to emotional content.

We delved deeper into these differences by analyzing how sales and marketing strategies change in B2B compared to B2C.

Since there are notable differences between the two areas, it goes without saying that the goals of a B2B website are also different from those of a B2C website.

In particular, among the different goals of a B2B company website, we should focus on:

• Structure a solid system for generating new leads, for example by using lead generation tools and integrating them into the website;
• Show authority in order to establish a long-term relationship of trust with customers. This can be possible thanks to content marketing, for example through the creation of case studies and white papers;
• Improve brand awareness also thanks to the development of coherent and brand-aligned communication and design;
• Boost the sales process, for example by sharing information, catalogs, FAQs and useful guides in the pre-sale phase.

These are some of the ways in which a well-structured website can make a real difference in sales. So let’s move on to some key points for creating a B2B website.

7 Key aspects of a B2B website

Creating a website means considering different aspects from design to structure, including functions. In particular, in a site focused on B2B sales, you should focus on different aspects:

1. Website structure: the organization of the site and pages, as well as considerations to make for landing pages that can be hosted on the same domain but disconnected from the site itself;
2. Content: a content marketing strategy can be structured that has the website as a distribution channel, for example to attract organic traffic. Furthermore, resources can be hosted on the site that can be used as lead magnets to obtain new leads;
3. Design and functionality: the appearance of the site, the functionality and integrations with other systems such as CRMs are to be considered in the site creation phase;
4. Performance and security: a website must not only be functional, but also have excellent security and performance measures (regarding loading times);
5. Visitor engagement: all the functions that can put us in contact with visitors and turn them into leads (contact forms, live chat and support hubs);
6. Analysis: adopting analysis systems to understand user behavior helps us improve the site;
7. Efficient customer support: Chatbots, FAQs and immediate support improve the user experience.

Website Structure

Before you even get down to work and start creating a site, you need to consider the structure.

We can think of the structure of the website as the foundation of a house: to start building, you have to start from the basics. Just like the foundation, the structure of the website must also be well designed at the beginning, in fact it can become expensive and complicated to intervene later to change it. You can always expand the initial structure of the site by adding pages and resources, but having a clear idea from the beginning makes the difference.

The basic structure of a B2B website generally contains the pages that we have collected in this table.

Page	Purpose of the page	Sub-pages
Home	The landing page of most visitors. It should have a well-structured menu that leads to the main pages. It briefly introduces the company and its services or products.	❌
About us	On this page you can delve deeper into what is mentioned on the home page to describe the company.	The About Us page can be linked to vertical resources such as: – company members presentation page; – company history; – mission and values.
Services / Products	An overview page to give an overview of the services or products offered.	Individual product or service pages are usually linked to the main one. (Depending on the type and complexity of the business, there may be multiple pages per service type, each with sub-pages for individual services.)
Case Studies / Portfolio	It includes case studies and recent work. It is essential to show authority in your sector.	Single pages focusing on individual case studies can be linked to the main page.
Resources	It can be structured as a hub that links to multiple types of content: for example, reports, ebooks and courses.	Individual resources typically have a dedicated page. Again, there may be multiple sections: for example, a page that collects all the white papers and then each white paper has its own dedicated page.
Contacts	The contact page may contain contact information and in some cases a form.	❌

Of course, the site doesn’t necessarily have to have all these sections at the beginning. For example, you might want to create a resources section with content such as reports or a blog with industry insights, only at a later stage after having created enough content.

The important thing, in the initial phase of creating the website, is to create the structure in such a way as to already prepare the elements that will make up it. In this way, it will also be easier to make additions and changes later.

Keep in mind that the pages we have talked about are part of the “basic structure” of the site. In addition to these, you should also consider ad hoc landing pages for individual services or products.

Landing pages are used to drive traffic from advertising campaigns, for example. Unlike other pages on the site, landing pages use a different approach and in particular, navigation elements (such as the menu) are eliminated because in this phase you don’t want the visitor to explore the site, but to perform an action. The purpose of the landing page is generally only one and can be:

• Purchase;
• Activation of a demo;
• Completion of a lead generation form.

In the structure of the website, another fundamental element is the navigation menu. In this we must both insert all the important pages, and be able to maintain a lean structure that is able to reflect the hierarchy of the site.

For example, Flexport has only four main items in the menu, but thanks to the submenu it allows you to reach the most important pages. In this example I highlighted how the macro-category Resources in turn contains links to the different types of resources on the site such as the blog, the glossary and the help center. In this case the Resources are further divided into Insights and Resources.

Contents

In the B2B space, content creation is aimed at driving traffic through an SEO strategy and generating leads. In addition, content also helps improve brand authority by demonstrating knowledge of your industry.

The most used types of content include:

• Reports;
• Webinars;
• Videos;
• Case studies;
• Research and industry studies;
• E-books;
• White papers;
• Blog posts;
• Podcasts.

A great example is Upwork’s Resource Center: it is a real hub where you can search for content by category or type. Content types include:

• Articles;
• Success stories (testimonials);
• E-books;
• Guides;
• Research;
• Tools;
• Videos;
• White papers.

When considering the type of content, you also need to think about the channel through which it will be distributed. In particular, according to research by the Content Marketing Institute, the blog section within the website is the second most used channel (84%) immediately after social media (89%). The website, therefore, is widely used for the distribution of content.

Design and functionality

A B2B website should be designed to create a professional and modern design, as well as to be functional. For example, elements such as pop-ups, banners and live chat can be extremely useful to notify of an offer or news or have a system to contact visitors more quickly. When designing these elements, however, you need to insert them correctly into the structure of the site so that:

• Do not interfere with reading;
• Do not create conflicts with other elements of the site making them unusable.

Things get even more complicated if we think that the site will have to be accessible and fully functional from all devices. For this reason, designing a site and adding functionality means finding the right compromise between adding functions and attractive design and usability itself.

For example, Similarweb shows interactive graphs in its reports with tooltips that appear when the mouse is hovered over them. This feature is used in the desktop version of the site, but not when visiting the site from mobile devices.

Optimize performance and security

The speed of a website is fundamental for several reasons:

• Site performance is a critical point that is analyzed by search engines and affects positioning. See Google’s Core Web Vitals, three main metrics (LCP, INP and CLS) that take into account the loading speed and usability of the page itself, analyzing exactly how the page behaves as it is loaded.
• Speed affects the user experience, a slow site can have a higher bounce rate: if the page takes more than 2.5 seconds to load, people could abandon the site (SEJ). On the contrary, a faster site can have a higher conversion rate.

To measure the speed of a site (and individual pages), you can use tools such as:

• Google PageSpeed Insights;
• GTmetrix;
• Pingdom;
• WebPage Test.

In addition to speed, site security is also important. To improve the security of a site there are several measures that can be followed:

• Choose a secure hosting that offers security support tools (SSL certificate, firewall and antivirus);
• Keep the software in use updated;
• Adopt a disaster recovery system (simple automatic backups may not be enough and additional systems with multiple backups are sometimes necessary);
• Improve authentication with additional measures such as 2FA;
• Make sure to regularly review the assignment of access by applying the principle of least privilege.

Visitor Engagement

One of the main goals of a B2B website can be lead generation. Collecting data from people who are really interested in our business is essential to start interacting with them more directly. When creating a website, you need to think about integrating your lead generation strategy and encouraging people to leave their contact details or contact the sales team.

This can be done using several tools:

• Adding a form to the contact page or home page;
• Inserting a widget for a live chat or allowing direct sending to your WhatsApp business account;
• Sharing your contact information such as phone or e-mail;
• Adding FAQs or live bots on the site to answer the most frequent doubts.

Analyses

In the creation phase of a website, the entire site must already be designed in order to make the most of this asset. In particular, the website is a valuable source of information that allows us to obtain data on user behavior.

By adopting analysis tools such as Google Analytics and heat maps that can be obtained with tools such as Clarity, we can analyze user behavior: for example, by seeing the clicks made and the pages visited. This information is essential to improve the site and its usability and to understand if there are problems that prevent correct navigation.

Furthermore, there are tools such as VWO (visual web optimizer) that also help us in structuring and improving the website by doing A/B tests. The goal is to understand how to improve the usability of the site or conversions, by carrying out tests with alternative versions of the same web page and measuring the changes. Analysis tools such as these are also essential in the case of B2B e-commerce.

B2B Website Examples

Now that we have seen the key points to follow in creating a B2B website, let’s move on to see some real examples of sites. For each one we will see some strong points taking into account the considerations we have made so far regarding:

• Usability;
• Site structure;
• Types of content to focus on;
• Contact methods.

ClickUp

The ClickUp home page immediately shows an overview of the tool. At the top you can find a very clear CTA (in the brand colors) that invites you to sign up for the tool.

The navigation menu is structured in an optimal way: the “Products” item is in turn divided into types of use (project management, development, resource management), all the functions and integrations (the latter are essential to ensure that the tool communicates with other tools). Furthermore, in each menu item the quick links that lead to:

• Contact page;
• Viewing the demo of the tool;
• App download link.

The site gives a lot of importance to use cases, in fact, in the Team section you can access use cases divided by: type of company, department (e.g. marketing or sales) and use case (project management, remote work).

Each of these sections links to a separate page designed to meet different needs. For example, if you select “Personal” it highlights functions that can be more tied to a personal plan, but if you select “Project management” it leverages the ability to create views, take advantage of automations and other functions that can save time in managing projects and working in structured teams.

The ClickUp Contact section is a real hub that acts as a support center. This page first invites you to search for the problem among the available resources: you can use the search bar or suggestions based on the most frequent searches.

Scrolling down the page we find useful resources organized by category and FAQs in accordion with a collection of the most consulted resources. Only at the end of the page is there an invitation to contact, but to do so you can also use the widget at the bottom right that opens a live chat with a bot that can then put us in contact with an operator.

ActiveCampaign

On the ActiveCampaign home page, the form to start a free trial is highlighted. The focus is therefore to push the activation of the free trial of the service.

The contact methods are also highlighted:

• In the top menu is the number to call to speak with the sales department;
• At the bottom right you can access the live chat with a help bot that helps us solve the most frequently asked questions.

The ActiveCampaign contact page is divided into two sections:

• One reserved for those who have already created an account (allows you to contact, start training or consult the support center);
• The other for everyone else. In this case, different channels are highlighted: phone calls or requests to the team and the possibility of filling out the form to request a demo.

In this case, therefore, rather than offering a quick method to get in touch, the focus is on channeling users towards the most appropriate type of support.

HubSpot

Still on the subject of contact options, HubSpot follows a different strategy than the example we just saw from ActiveCampaign. In the case of HubSpot, the contact page clearly shows three contact methods: phone, chat, and request a demo.

Scrolling down the page you can directly access the live chat that is positioned in the center of the page, instead of being used in the form of a widget at the bottom right. Scrolling further we find the form to request a demo.

In this case, a lot of importance is given to immediately establishing a first contact with visitors. This approach, in fact, allows you to have all the contact methods on the same page and does not require you to take further actions to reach, for example, the chat or the demo request form.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite has a comprehensive resources section that contains various categories of content. You can explore by category or industry, or see the latest resources.

Content types include:

• Research;
• Strategies;
• Case studies;
• Toolkits.

Hootsuite is a great example of how to leverage resources for lead generation. In fact, some resources are directly accessible, for others you have to leave your contact information to download the guides, as in the example below.

Intel

Intel has a Company Overview page that provides insights into the company’s mission and strategy, and then links to dedicated pages for in-depth information on its corporate values.

The case study section is also interesting as it not only allows you to see the entire history of published case studies, but also shows some highlighted elements.

Create a high-performance B2B site with Visilay

A B2B website must reflect the company image, but it cannot be considered a simple showcase. The goal of a site is to attract new visitors, engage them and allow them to get in touch with leads.

To achieve this, the site must meet several criteria, as we have seen it is important to take care of both the structure and the design, without forgetting the technical optimizations and the integration of analysis systems. At Visilay we can help you both with the design and development of your website and by offering you maintenance and support to keep the site updated and safe. Take the first step today to improve your online presence and increase conversions.