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B2B Blogging

Is Blogging on your B2B website a good idea? Blogging, especially for your business, has its pros and cons. Here are a few to consider:

Cons:

  • Anything you post is available forever on the web. Search engines and other sites cache results which means that even if you delete a post, it may still be available somewhere on the web.
  • Any opinions expressed in your blog can affect the image your business portrays. Keep clear of political, religious or controversial opinions unless you’re ok with those opinions being associated with your blog.
  • Takes a lot of time. While writing a blog post sometimes only takes 5-10 minutes, there are times when it can eat up a lot more – especially if you feel compelled to post on a schedule and are feeling writer’s block.

Pros:

  • An easy way to add content to your site (and lots of it). A blog can be a great way to add content to your site very frequently. Visitors are more likely to visit if your site is up-to-date and has a lot of content to offer.
  • An easy way to share valuable expertise. Do you have experience or information you’d like to share with your customers? Blogging is an easy way to show your knowledge in your industry and get your name out.
  • A good way to reach out to your customers. Blogging with a comments allows you to share experience, expertise and opinions with your customers. Most importantly, it allows them an easy way to give you feedback on how you can improve your products and services. These are all important to creating a good customer-centric website.

Overall I think blogging can be good for a B2B website, if you go into it with commitment to post regularly and understand how it can affect your business. It certainly is a good way to establish communication with your customers and share your experience and expertise with them. Keep in mind that the above pros and cons also apply if you have a personal blog. If you blog under your real name, it can affect your business image, even if it is in a personal setting.

Happy Blogging!

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B2B Website Usability Basics – Part 3 – Testing

Once you have your new site design launched, the next step is to see how well you figured out your audience. Yep! That’s right – more research – and testing.

You’ll once again need to take a look at your website analytics/stats and see if people are staying on your site longer and going further into the site. You should also see less use of your search engine for the items that you linked to from the homepage. Take a look at your site overlay if you have one and you should also see where people are clicking on each page.

Now you need to continue to improve your site by looking at your analytics/stats and seeing what you can do to make the site even easier to use. If you can, call some of your website visitors and see what they like and dislike about the site. What do they have problems finding? What do they like?

Usability is a constant process of improving your site. Having a customer-centric site means making your site with your customer in mind. The goal is to help people (your customers) find the information they need so they’ll return to your site next time they’re looking. You should see more traffic as more and more people turn to your site as an information source.

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B2B Website Usability Basics – Part 2 – Layout

Now that we’ve done some research on what your visitors are looking for and at on your website, we can take our first stab at our layout, or where things should go on the website. Here are a few basics:

  • The menu should be either across the top or down the left. A link to the homepage should be the top or left-most link. Menu items should be links to what people are looking for on your site. Examples: Products, Services, About, Contact. You should setup a hierachy that makes sense. All your products should be listed on the first Products page (or have links from there). All your services should be listed on the first Services page (or have links from there). You get the idea….
  • A search box, if you have one, should be in the upper right. There should be a text box to input your search terms and then a button right to the right of it which says ‘Search’.
  • Your most important and/or most frequently updated content should be in the upper left. Visitors scan left to right and then back to the left further down the page, continuing until they have to scroll down the page. Use the research gathered in Part 1 to select the items that are most important and lay them out left to right, then down the page as if you are reading (you probably find yourself scanning down pages in this same manner on other sites). To borrow a term from print newspapers, items above the fold (or what is immediately viewable without scrolling) should be your most important content, products or services.
  • Provide text links at the bottom of each page to your highest level or most important links to make them easy to find.
  • White space should be incorporated to break up text and make it easy for visitors to scan your website for what they are looking for.
  • Minimize movement of pictures, ads and movies – they are distracting and annoying to visitors who are looking at your site.

Once you put your layout into place, you are ready for B2B Website Usability Basics – Part 3 – Testing.

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