Why building a B2B website is worth considering

7 June 2023
Reading time: 9 min
Webdesign & development

A business that offers products and services to other businesses needs a B2B website. A B2B website is like a reliable assistant who is there for you day and night. It is your online shop window, your online business card. It is the place where potential partners and B2B customers come together to discover your company.

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What is a B2B website?

Online catalog
Purpose B2B web shop

Why is a B2B website important?
Benefits B2B website
B2B website for beginners: this is what you need

Determine the target group of your business site
Post relevant content online
Use a 'B2B website builder' or a Content Management System
Test your website
Promote your website

Building a B2B website with Combell

What is a B2B website?

By a B2B website, we primarily mean a 'Business to Business website'. They are business websites - usually your company website - through which companies make products, services and interesting information available to other companies. So it is a professional website focused on companies or partners.

That's where a B2B website differs from a B2C website ('Business to Consumer'). Although you set up your website for business, with a B2C website you are primarily targeting individuals. So your offerings (from content to any products) are primarily focused on the ordinary consumer.

And what about a B2B webshop? That's an online store focused on selling products and services directly to other businesses. A B2B webshop is a particular type of B2B website.

Online catalog

Creating a business website ensures that other companies discover your B2B offerings. Such a business site serves as a kind of digital meeting point. Other companies find out what your company stands for, peruse your online catalog, can request a quote, contact you ...

Purpose B2B web shop

With a B2B website, the main goal is to bring in new leads. By building up your company site professionally, you generate interest from new partners. For example, with wholesalers who are looking for new suppliers. That way, you can increase your brand awareness. That, in turn, can boost your sales.

Professional website makes your business grow.

Why is a B2B website important?

Any website is important. As a company, you simply cannot do without one. Anyone who is invisible on the internet is blind to all the opportunities waiting for you online. 😉

Those opportunities are even higher for those operating in the B2B sector. Recent figures show that barely 6% of B2B companies do not use online ways to do business. According to experts, as much as 75% of B2B purchasing spending is expected to take place on online platforms within five years.

That is not all by a long shot! Belgians spend an average of 5 hours and 27 minutes a day on the internet. That includes many business leaders who may be interested in your B2B website.

Benefits B2B website

Getting a business website created involves a lot of benefits. We'll list the most important ones.

Always and worldwide online. If you close the door behind you at the office, the company comes to rest. At least as far as reaching new customers is concerned. While your company website is accessible day and night. Interested customers can discover your company anywhere and at any time of the day. So you're not just dependent on business hours at all.

Higher customer service. Corporate customers looking for information and new products will appreciate the fact that you have your own company website. This way they can find everything much faster. You can also consider being available via email or chat for potential customers who have questions.

Strong brand identity. With that better service, B2B customers gain more trust in your company and you strengthen your company's brand identity.

Insights and analysis. You can create a business website to get more insights into who is interested in your business. You can use tools like Google Analytics to analyze data and statistics.

Tip

Lead generation software like Leadinfo lets you find out the details of your anonymous B2B website visitors, such as the company name, contact information and LinkedIn profiles of decision makers. Try the software now for free for 14 days. That way you'll discover which companies are visiting your website.

B2B website for beginners: this is what you need

Building a B2B website from scratch is not obvious. There is a lot of preparation involved. As a (starting) entrepreneur, you will need to throw on several hats. That of online expert may not have been on your to-do list. 😄

Fortunately, you are in the experienced hands of Combell. We will explain to you what to watch out for and what you need to create a B2B website.

Determine the target group of your business site

Starting a company website for the B2B market first requires some thinking. You have to find out in which world your company operates. You do this by doing thorough market research, identifying your competition and analyzing your existing customer data.

It is the ideal way to get a better idea of what your potential customers need. They will probably come looking for just that on your B2B website.

B2B website: example target group analysis

A supplier of dough who wants to sell products to industrial bakeries analyzes his target audience by finding out what kind of bakeries he wants to supply to. Are they companies that mainly produce bread, cakes or pastries? By finding out, the supplier knows what kind of content his business website should focus on. By engaging in competitor analysis, the entrepreneur discovers what other B2B websites look like and how he can differentiate himself

Post relevant content online

We stick with that supplier of dough for a moment. Suppose you want to partner primarily with bakeries that mainly make bread.

Then the content of your website should focus on what might be of interest to those bakeries. Think of descriptions of different types of dough, its composition, hygiene regulations at your company, how fast you can deliver ...

It is also wise to provide web pages where you put information about the history of your company, your employees, where you are located, how new customers can contact you.

By putting clear and relevant information on your website, visitors will find out in an instant what your company stands for and what you have to offer. Putting quality content online regularly is also positive for the search engine optimization of your B2B website. More on scoring in search engines later.

Create your own business website like a true professional.

Use a 'B2B website builder' or a Content Management System

To put content online, you obviously need to find a suitable platform to build your website with. You can also have a business website built. An agency or a professional web designer will perform you a customized website. Of course, this comes with a slightly firmer price tag.

Tip

To put your B2B website online, you obviously need a domain name and hosting. Be smart and buy your hosting package at Combell. In fact, the first year, your domain name is included in your package!

This is why it is not a bad idea to create your company website yourself. Give it a shot! The tools we discuss here are so user-friendly that complete amateurs without IT skills can build a website.

SiteBuilder

SiteBuilder is an easy and affordable option to create your own website. This handy 'B2B website builder' allows you to create responsive B2B websites even without any experience or knowledge of code. Just how clever is that!

Tip

The webshop module is already included from the SiteBuilder Standard package. This allows you to create your own B2B website first and upgrade to a B2B webshop later. No need to buy another package.

When choosing to build your website yourself, you can pick a SiteBuilder package that has hosting included. Best of all, SiteBuilder lets you choose the size that best suits you!

Test your website

The launch of your own website is getting closer. 😀 Before that happens, it is important to test your website (or have it tested). This will allow you to spot errors, such as unexpected problems or an important call-to-action that is missing.

Since companies have no time to waste, errors that only come to light while surfers are already using your website are really unacceptable.

Tests you can do:

Functional testing. Test all the features and pages of your B2B website yourself to make sure everything works as it should. Viewing images, requesting a price offer ...

Cross-browser and cross-device testing. You need to test your site on different devices and browsers to check how it looks on different screen sizes and in different browsers. Make sure your website is responsive and looks good on both desktops and mobile devices.

Security tests. Test security to prevent sensitive information of potential customers from being stolen. For example, use a security scanner such as Qualys or a penetration testing tool such as Metasploit. A cybersecurity expert like Fox-IT will help you set up various tests, by the way.

Stress tests. This is how you check whether your site is ready for optimal performance. At Combell, we simulate all kinds of user situations in order to test the responsiveness, stability and speed of your site under different circumstances. This way, we also detect problematic elements in your code or settings.

Promote your website

Once the little hiccups from the testing phase are resolved, it's time to launch your website AND promote it. Just like a market vendor advertises his goods in the town square, you need to promote your website.

4 ways to do marketing:

Be active on social media. YouTube, Instagram, Facebook ... Use social media channels to spread the word about your website. Also put social media buttons on your website to make your online business card more interactive.

On the same social media, you can experiment with paid online ads. This is how you create online visibility. You do that through Google Ads, for example. The monthly costs for such campaigns are very reasonable.

Set up your search engine optimization (SEO). This will increase your findability on Google, among others. Make sure you have effective keywords, valuable content and efficient meta-descriptions.

Do (free) e-mail marketing. Let yourself be heard via newsletters and improve relations with your customers.

Tip

Every Combell customer gets a free Flexmail account. This is a handy e-mail marketing tool that allows you to promote your B2B website. Do not miss this opportunity!

Even as a small business with a website, you need to maintain your online marketing.

Feel free to engage several channels at once. You should not let your marketing depend on a single channel. Using different marketing channels is a powerful way to grow your business and attract more customers.

Remember that each channel is unique and your strategy should depend on your specific target audience. With the right mix of marketing channels, you can make your B2B website flourish and amaze your competitors. 😃

Building a B2B website with Combell

If you follow our overview, you will build a strong foundation for your own website. And in order to support you even further in the growth and development of your business website, there is SiteBuilder. With SiteBuilder, Combell's handy website builder, you can create a business website without any experience or technical knowledge.

As the market leader in hosting, Combell is ready to help you shine on the internet. So what are you waiting for? Get started with SiteBuilder and let Combell guide you in creating your business website!

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