A website redesign is no small undertaking, and (hopefully) it’s not the kind of thing that comes up every month. Redesigns are long-term strategic projects. They need to be done with very specific goals and timeframes in mind.
Without due forethought and planning for an upcoming redesign, it’s easy to get caught up in the “flavor of the month” design trends. Things that might have looked great in a demo become frustrating disruptions when put to day-to-day use (I’m looking at you, infinite scroll websites).
Instead, seek out new and useful features on websites that do their job well. That might be your competition, your partners, or any brands you admire. See what they do differently and why it works. It’s never too early to start thinking about your next website redesign.
That’s why we put together four of our favorite B2B website features to emulate in your next redesign.
1. Grammarly’s Product Animation
Grammarly introduces new visitors to their site with a short animation, showing off their live editing capabilities on several lines of text. The handful of text snippets make up a brief explanation of the product. The image is surrounded with a brief value proposition above and CTA button accompanied by an App Store rating below.
In addition to being a clever trick to get visitors to read their product description, this animation does a great job of demonstrating the basics of the product. Users see what Grammarly does, how it’s used, and some of the mistakes it can catch, all in a few seconds.
More generally, the animation is simple, it’s clean, and it stands in for a significant amount of text. You’ll see this is a common theme across all four of the features in this list: replacing the standard text with interactivity and visual elements. Not only is the latter more space and time-efficient, but it’s more engaging for visitors.
This series of elements checks all the boxes for a homepage. It gets the reader interested, gives a brief explanation of the product, and sets them on the path to explore more.
2. WorkWeek’s Pain Points Menu
WorkWeek did some research, as all companies should, to discover the major pain points their audience had in regard to services like theirs. For online invoicing, it was things like an inability to coordinate online and in-person payments.
As it turns out, WorkWeek could resolve many of these pain points. They compiled all pain points and paired each with a short description. Then, each pain point was linked to a page detailing how WorkWeek solves the problem.
This pain point menu appears throughout the site, from the home page to individual service pages. The menu serves as a form of navigation as well as an invitation to dig deeper.
This menu works because it introduces services in a very logical, customer-facing way. A prospective customer doesn’t come to your site thinking, “I can’t reconcile my online and offline payments. I need a cloud-based payment processing platform that connects to my bank account.” They come to your site thinking, “I can’t reconcile online and offline payments. How am I supposed to fix this?” And that’s the line of thinking that this type of menu caters to.
Pairing challenges with solutions, as this menu does, is a very effective way to get prospective customers to dig into the right offering for them while highlighting the value of your offering at the same time.
3. Packwire’s Interactive Box Builder
Sometimes, in B2B, marketers make excuses for themselves because they don’t sell interesting or exciting products.
Packwire sells cardboard boxes. Probably one of the most run-of-the-mill products out there. It would be easy for them to relegate their product as boring and stick with a plain, traditional site. Instead, Packwire made their product interesting.
They created an interactive tool that allows prospective customers to customize, price, and order their own branded boxes. They can mix and match box sizes, materials, colors, and graphics. All changes are reflected in a 3D model in the center of the builder. It can then be saved, shared, or purchased right from the interface.
This tool is effective due to how efficiently it conveys information. Packwire could have just listed all their prices, materials, and options for customization in a traditional order form. Not only would that have been clunky and unapproachable, but it would have left the door open for miscommunications and confusion.
This interactive builder allows prospects to jump in and play with the options. They can see exactly what their box looks like at all times. They can flip between options, see how the price is impacted, and determine if they want to proceed. They can show their boss, coworkers, and other stakeholders what they put together. And ultimately, they can make the purchase. This tool does a great job escorting prospective clients through the mid to late stages of the buying process.
4. Rollpark’s Dynamic Product Graphic
Rollpark is a semi-permanent pavement solution. They offer parking lots that are up and ready for use in a matter of days rather than weeks. Naturally, the first question most viewers will ask is, “How exactly do you do that?”
Of course, Rollpark anticipates this question. Front and center on their homepage, they offer an interactive diagram explaining how their solution works. As users scroll or hit the “Explore” button, the nearby parking lot graphic splits apart to reveal the layers of construction that make the product work.
Rollpark’s product graphic is effective for a couple of reasons. First, it’s proactive. It anticipates the biggest question for new website visitors and addresses it from the start.
Second, the product diagram focuses on communicating information visually. The accompanying text amounts to six or seven sentences. If not for the intricacy of the diagram’s illustration, this text would be vastly insufficient to explain such a complicated product. But thanks to the detail of the imagery, the diagram as a whole provides a solid product explanation and a reason for prospects to move further into the site.
Plain text is becoming an ever-scarcer component of B2B websites. What used to be large blocks of text is being replaced with animation, illustrations, data visualizations, and interactivity. The four examples here are just a few successful adoptions of this trend.
Look for opportunities to make your website more visual and interactive. Even if you’re not currently in the process of a redesign, build up a bank of possibilities for when that time comes. The end results will be a site that is both usable and useful for your audience – and that satisfaction translates to high-converting leads down the line.
Let us know what you think:
- Would you consider using any of these features on your website?
- What is your favorite feature you’ve seen on a website?
