5 website features that drive better leads for B2B tech

While social networks and other media types are great ways to garner awareness for your business-to-business (B2B) tech company, the bulk of your marketing strategy should be on your website. Why? Because all traffic—paid, owned, or earned—drives there, and more importantly, it’s where conversions happen.

If you want to earn and convert leads, your website must shine brighter than the rest and deliver real value. Here are just five features you can focus on to make that happen.

1. Helpful tools for users

Your users, and ultimately customers are looking to you to help them solve a problem. Integrating helpful tools to your website to assist them in that goal will:

• Earn your thought leadership points.
• Provide a positive user experience and overall impression of your brand.
• Move users further in the buyer journey.

Examples in action: Cool website tools

Our clients enjoy using tools of all kinds on their websites. ROI calculators with fun animations, quizzes, assessments, and bespoke estimation tools are just a few!

Metro Credit Union

Metro Credit Union's suite of financial calculators helps their members figure out everything from mortgage estimate to debt consolidation costs.

ASC Engineered Solutions (ASC)

ASC has created their own Digital Toolbox just for their manufacturing audience. Whether you're in that industry or not, take a look at their comprehensive group of tools. They're great inspiration!

• ASC ConnectED™-Spec
• ASC ConnectED™-BOM
• ASC ConnectED™ for Revit
• ASC ConnectED™-Content
• ASC Valve Configurator
• ASC ConnectED™-Submittal
• Seis Brace®
• Virtual Design & Construction
• Sharpe Valve CAD Library
• VEP Product Selector

By the way, Imarc's team collaborated with ASC to bring several of these tools to market. If you ever need a tool, we're ready to help you build it.

Sana's Healthcare Plan Navigator

Healthcare costs can be confusing, which is why Sana's Healthcare Plan Navigator is so helpful to the brokers they sell to. While there's more involved with getting a specific quote, estimations can be done right on their site!

These are just a few of many possibilities. Well-designed tools build credibility, encourage return visits, and support conversions.

2. Interactive content & experiences

Interactive infographics, self-service/virtual demos, and explainer/product videos demonstrating how customers’ lives can be made easier are fabulous additions to any website. Here are a few standout examples from our clients.

Coalfire's introduction to Hexeon®

This explainer video embedded on their Hexeon® landing page take a complex topic and makes it easy to understand, even if you aren't a security pro.

Zenni's virtual try-on

This non-tech example is part tool, part experiential website feature. If you've ever shopped for glasses before, you know it's crucial to try them on. Zenni let's you do that online! While tech companies aren't selling glasses, they can bring this level of business to customer (B2C) delight by providing experiences to their customer base.

Please note: Zenni isn't an Imarc client.

Markforged dynamic tabbed content

Markforged sells many different kinds of industrial 3D printers, so it stands to reason that each has technical benefits buyers will want to learn about. They accomplish that goal with exciting tabbed content like this one for the FX10™. Neat and useful, right?

3. On-site search

Have you ever searched a site for what you need, only to find completely unrelated results? Or worse, no results? If your site search behaves like that, it's a lost B2B opportunity to answer customer questions. Many forget about it, but fast and predictive on-site search can be a game-changer.

There are many ways to optimize for on-site search, too. Even making small site search updates can help you recognize more leads.

Things you can do to improve your on-site search

• Adjust the placement of the search bar itself to bring more attention to it.
• Add autocompletion and predictive search to help users find what they need, even if they’re not sure how to search for it at first.
• Carefully create filters that can help narrow a search down intuitively.
• Inform your search with search queries. This can be done regularly.
• Conduct customer user tests to ensure that your search is providing the best possible answers for them specifically.

We have additional site search optimization strategies, but those are usually tailored to each website and its audience. It really comes down to how people use search, what they’re looking for, and what they expect in terms of speed and helpful results. If you'd like to explore options, we’re happy to help.

4. Forms

Forms are important. For a while, when people were talking about the removal of cookies, the most frequently promoted strategy to prepare was to increase first-party lead generation. While cookies are still with us, this focus is still relevant and forms are a large part of the strategy. Optimizing your forms is well worth the time investment.

Ways to improve your website forms

1. Use a well-styled and designed form, not a mismatched afterthought from your customer relationship management (CRM) system.
2. Keep your forms as short as possible. Concise forms perform better.
3. Keep the form intent clear. What is the user getting? It shouldn't be hard to gauge.
4. Don't ask users for sensitive information. If a field feels uncomfortable to fill out, remove it and you'll likely watch the conversions increase.
5. If you want more for your forms, consider a tool like Typeform, which provides logic-based and interactive visual forms.

5. XML sitemap

When was the last time you looked at your XML sitemap? If your website has existed for a while, it has probably expanded, changed direction, and some areas likely don't exist anymore. If that's the case, it's time to pay more attention to it because your XML sitemap helps with search engine optimization (SEO) by allowing search engines to find, crawl, and index the website's pages.

Pro tip! The organization of your XML sitemap is of prime importance after a full-on website refresh or redesign, because it needs to be thought out simultaneously.

Your XML sitemap will be most effective if you prioritize your most important pages, make sure all information within it is correct, and you follow XML sitemap best practices.

Oh, and once your sitemap is in good shape, don't forget to submit it to Google. There's no need to wait for it to be found. Pull that traffic in right away!

PS: Here's something to remove... distractions

Websites have a lot of content, and while we know you need cookies for strategic initiatives like remarketing and goal tracking, do you really want visitors to compete against a chatbot, a form, and a slide-in to see your content? You can employ all those features, but do so intentionally and ensure they don't conflict or take attention away from your primary intent.

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Which website feature will you be optimizing first? Need help? We're here! Just say hello.