Why Your Website Might Not Be Delivering The Revenue It Should – Episode 97

One of the things that's massively overlooked is that your website is probably people's first and potentially only exposure to your brand, right? So you've got to use your website to tell a really convincing story. The best websites, the websites that I really like, going back to time and time again are the ones that do that. They have that kind of storytelling baked into every aspect of their web design.

It's worth mentioning at this stage, I think the most popular episode of this podcast was the one we did with Bob Keiller. Quite an epic. Listen, it's about an hour and a half long and he's the master storyteller. Do you think a lot of businesses miss this idea of storytelling and messaging on their website?

I think it's partly because people used to use websites very much as sort of brochures. Right? And you shouldn't really ever be, I don't think. Anyway, talking about yourself very much on your website. The idea is to obviously tell customers a story about why they need what you're doing.

So welcome back to Digital Marketing From The Coalface. This week we're going to talk about.

Uh, what are we talking about?

What what makes a good B2B website and why are we talking about that?

We are talking about it because we were scrounging about for ideas, because people Google it. It's a question that, um, something of ours. I'm not quite sure what ranks for quite well. And we do get a steady trickle of traffic from it don't we.

So yeah, possibly we do. Um but we thought there might be some mileage in it. I'm already regretting this subject, but.

I thought every time I sit down at this table with you, to be honest.

We thought there might be some mileage in having a chat about what makes a good B2B website, because we spend quite a lot of time trying to improve, uh, perfect, uh, make more.

Evolve.

Develop, make more gooder.

Make more good. Yeah, that's a good one.

B to B websites. It's what we spend a lot of our time doing. So you'd think that we could probably talk about it with some degree of authority and, and knowledge.

Yeah. I mean, I think on the surface of it, it's a really stupid question. It's way too broad. It's nebulous. You can't really like give a solid answer to it. But I think if you actually dig down under the surface, there's loads of stuff I really want to talk about here.

So you could also approach it from a slightly different angle. You could say like what isn't a, what isn't a good B2B website, I suppose as well. We could maybe look at that. So there's lots you want to talk about.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, you can get things moving then. Off you go.

Right. No. Um, my own worst enemy sometimes I um well I think well no, I think actually the approach that you're recommending there where we talk about what it's not is a really good place to start, right? Because I think a lot of people, when you ask that question, like the first place that your head goes is what is what makes a good website? Or it looks shiny, it looks nice or whatever. All of those like really surface level things about first impressions and whether or not it looks and feels expensive. And but I don't think any of that's actually true, is it? I think.

Well, why don't we start with that? Why don't we start with something easy? Because a lot of businesses, that's where they start, right? You know, we want our website to look for it. Professional.

Yeah. Yep. Shiny. Oh God.

Yeah. They want it to look professional. So they want it to look shiny, etc.. So if we start with that, you know, what are the minimum requirements from an aesthetic point of view? Do we think? Well, let me ask you, let me ask that question a slightly different way. I think I know what your what your answer will be. Could you buy a template, a design, an off the shelf design, tweak it a bit so that it's got your branding on it, your fonts, your color scheme, and will that pass muster?

Yeah. Yeah. I genuinely think it will, uh, well, in fact, I know it will, because there are plenty of businesses.

Are you going to tell the team, or am I going to tell them that we don't need them anymore?

It's not a case of not needing the team. It's a case of bare minimum.

You've just said you can just buy a template and it will work.

You can just buy a template and it will often work perfectly well. I think that's a fair statement. Okay. I think in my eyes, because this is the thing, isn't it? I think when you ask a question like, what is a good B2B website that you can get really sort of bogged down in all of this discussion about what is effectively just aesthetics, right? And I think ultimately, the point is, in my mind, at least as long as it doesn't look like your cousin Jeff did it in his bedroom, you're sort of okay, right? I think the bare minimum requirement is just that it looks okay. It looks, you know, everything lines up properly. The fonts are consistent, the colors are consistent. There's nice imagery. I don't think it has to be fantastically, aesthetically pleasing. You're looking at me like I'm lying. What?

No I'm not. I'm absolutely mystified as to how you knew that my cousin Jeff built websites.

But you know what I mean. Sometimes you land on a website and you think, yeah, this looks a bit hokey. This looks like it was. It's maybe twenty years old. It was maybe done by a freelancer. Probably don't trust these guys. But I think the, the sort of spectrum of websites that are above that. And between that and a sort of, you know, thirty thousand pound super professional, hand-cranked website, there's a huge range of websites that are perfectly good and okay. Okay.

So templates question that that begs is, can a company succeed with a website that's by anybody's standards, awful.

No, I don't think so. No, no, no, I don't think so. I like well, we've talked before haven't we, about all these studies that say that you sort of you form a first impression based on the first, like I think it's like zero point five of a second that you spend on a website or whatever that you're forming a sort of a really deep seated impression of that company's performance and its ability and its trustworthiness and all of that stuff. And I just think, honestly, if if your first glance at a website makes you think, oh, I'm not sure about this, you're probably never going to do business with that company. And I think in aggregate, what that means is that people with bad websites don't really make any money from those websites. Those websites just don't generate revenue for companies at all.

Okay. Does that mean then that a good website has to be an everyman website?

No. Well, no, it has to please your target audience, right? It has to appeal to the people we actually care about. It has to create a good first impression with a very specific group of people.

Even then, if you say, okay, if you said your target audience was, um, let me think, your target audience was HR managers, let's say you sold, um, HR case management software and your target manager target audience were HR managers that, that kind of general, they're all completely different, surely. I mean, there'll be men, there'll be women, there'll be old people, there'll be young people. There'll be people who support Manchester United. There'll be people who support Liverpool. There'll be people whose favourite colours orange. People whose favourite colour pink.

Be some people that like avocados, and some people that think that.

Some people are very picky about, um, English and grammar and some people that don't really care if it's proper England that you've put on your website or not. Yeah. It's like, you know, when we create target audiences, ideal customers, it's, you know, we're always told to be very specific. You know, it's a, it's, it's, it's a female, it's this age group. They went to university. But, but even then, you know, we've got to make allowances for the fact that lots of people, you know, if you, if we, if we should, um, ten random people, our website, I would expect some of them might quite like it. Some of them probably hate it and some of them would be indifferent towards it. If a business looks like it can solve and this is the crux of what we'll get on to. If a business looks like it can solve your challenge, it can provide the service or the product that you need because you're experiencing some level of discomfort. Like, you know, your accounts have to be submitted in two months time. You haven't got an accountant, you're looking for a safe pair of hands who can get all of those shoe boxes full of receipts, turn it into a proper set of accounts, submit them, and everything is going to be good in your world. Um, I don't know how important it is that they also like your website.

Well, I don't think it's about liking the website, is it? And this is the point. It's just about I mean, that effectively what we're saying is that as long as you're sort of or what I'm saying is that as long as your website isn't distracting from that message, right? Because it's like you can set up an accountancy firm that does exactly what you just described and sell it in such a way that people are immediately put off. And I think a lot of bad websites do do that. I think it gets in the way of the messaging. If, for example, the design is distracting, if it looks so old and so cluttered and so untrustworthy that you're not really in a frame of mind to listen to what the other the company is telling you, or to sort of take on board what they're saying. I think it's about, to your point about people being very varied and having different wants or very varied. Oh, yeah. Good point. I internalised that from an email we read together earlier and laughed at. It was a proposal actually, wasn't it? It was. Um, yeah. So basically what I'm saying is that yes, everybody has different things they'd like to see in a website, but that's sort of irrelevant. The point is there are basic expectations that have to be met in order for people to actually engage with the website at all. And if you don't meet those expectations, people won't engage. It's not just a case of having a really convincing offer, because the aesthetics of your website have to at least get out of the way of that offer.

So here's a, a non, a non car analogy. Um, you're at a networking event and you're speaking to a bunch of people who all happen to be in a professional services company, work for different professional services company, and they all provide a service which your company is kind of looking for. And one of them is in a very expensive suit. One of them is in a suit from George at Asda, which costs like twenty quid.

Yep.

And someone else is in a casual top and a pair of jeans. Sure. Are you going to make a decision based on smart suit? Cheap suit person who's too casual for this event? Or maybe they're not too casual for this event? What I'm saying is, you know, the way that we present ourselves is important. But at the same time, you know, some people will be drawn to the person in the jeans and the casual top because it's like, yeah, it's my kind of person.

They're not wearing.

Other people won't notice that the guy in the twenty quid suit is actually wearing a twenty quid suit, because, you know, it fits where it touches. So that who cares? And then and some people will look at the gates.

Where it touches.

Some people will look at the smart suit and go, wow, that's like super cool.

That dude knows what he's doing.

Yeah, he's got too much money.

Yeah, he charges too much. I'm going with a cheap guy.

I mean, we did once. I think it's only once it's happened. You know, we got a phone call from somebody and kind of. They just didn't quite connect how we were. We he said, you know, basically you look like you're a much bigger company than your accounts at companies House because you're doing due diligence. Due diligence. I nearly said due diligence. And for our American listeners, Due diligence was being done, and the accounts told him one thing and our appearance told him another, and that made him think, oh, I'm not sure I can trust these people. I don't I'm I've got there's something not quite adding up.

So there's a sort of like, no, you know, your sort of wheelhouse, understand your audience thing going on here isn't there? It's like, don't try and present yourself as like a giant investment bank. If you just sort of peddling cheap car insurance or whatever. Yeah, I get it.

You just said wheelhouse.

Yes.

Is that a podcast is over? Yeah. We're done.

Sorry, guys.

Yeah. I'm not having it.

It's been a journey.

It took till episode ninety seven. Yeah. And that's the final. That's the final.

You don't.

Bullshit. Bingo. Box ticked. You mentioned wheelhouse. That's it. Done. We don't have to do any more of this nonsense. Um, okay, so what are we really saying about look and feel? Because people do get really bogged down about look and feel.

Yeah.

I think they can spend. Well, you know, we've got one client in particular just now, a client we absolutely love to bits. And the design process has been torturous because they wanted this. We gave them this. Now they realise this isn't what they need. They want something else. And it's kind of quite a slow process. We'll get there and the end result will be fantastic. But they are very much focused on on look and feel. Yeah, we've talked about look and feel way more than we've talked about all aspects.

And that's the really interesting thing. And that's what I'm sort of hoping we'll get on to here because yeah, I think this is the thing isn't it? Look and feel is a foundational thing. It has to be there and it has to be right. But it just has to be right enough that your audience are gonna engage with the rest of it. It's not on its own. Nobody's going to buy from you because your website looks exceptionally shiny, or because you picked the perfect picture, or your menus are exactly the right.

The way the website looks affect how people feel about you, and it's the way they feel about you, which is the important thing if they feel like you look credible, safe pair of hands. They're kind.

Of yeah.

They're kind of company.

But the point I'm making is in the suit analogy that you just gave. We're talking about an expensive suit. You're not saying I'm not talking to him because his suit is pink. And although it looks very expensive, he's chosen the wrong tie for it. And also those shoes don't really go because do you know what I mean? Like, you're willing to customers are willing to overlook all of those minute errors or whatever, whether they're errors or not. Choices, stylistic decisions. As long as the suit looks sufficiently expensive and just sitting in the category of man wearing expensive suit, the man in the suit is just wearing a cheap suit. Doesn't matter whether.

We get sued by.

Bring It On, doesn't matter whether he's wearing the most exceptionally nice Jeffrey West shoes or he's got himself a, you know, sort of hand embroidered leather belt or something. He's wearing a cheap suit and he's always sitting in that category. You just have to give your audience an experience that's close enough to what they were expecting, that they're now not sat there thinking, this website looks off. It looks jarring, Yeah. I think really, you know, the way that people browse and the length of time they take to look at websites, you're really just looking for sort of impressions. Like it's a first impressions thing. And as long as the first impression is, oh yeah, this looks nice, they're probably already too busy reading or watching a video or doing something else to be sat there kind of obsessing. And it's right. To a certain degree, I think that web owners, business owners, website managers do obsess over these things. It's fine to take pride in or to want your website to be as good as it possibly can be, but I don't think it's actually what makes a good website and I think should be sucked into it.

Should good design, as in many walks of life, be almost invisible?

Yeah. Like unobtrusive. Yeah.

As in it, it, it neither offends nor nor um, overly impresses. It's, it's just this vessel, it's a vehicle for delivering information, messages, content, videos, whatever. Um, and as long as it isn't offensive, as long as it's kind of invisible, then, then it works.

I think so, and I think the other thing that's worth pointing out is that Obtrusively good design is in good design that you notice you're, you're, you're on very dangerous ground there because design trends can and do change quite swiftly, big time and loud websites that are very much, you know, sort of on trend one month. Can the next month look hilariously out of date? And we see this a lot. You know, you'll see websites, you can look at it and you can say, yeah, I know for a fact that was designed in sort of twenty ten, because that's when that was like really in vogue. And you know, as you do it with like really those really sort of like minimalist websites where everything is just white with like one picture and really thin black text. And it's like, it's very much of its moment and you're sort of deliberately dating your project if you go down that route. I think so, yeah. Unobtrusive, invisible. I think that's exactly it.

Okay. Um, so moving on because you said you've got lots to talk about moving on from the look and feel. Um, we've, we've accepted that you could use an off the shelf template, you could have a design done. We've kind of suggested that your website should tick a few boxes. It should be nice. It should be easy to use. People should be able to find the menu where the menu is supposed to be. They shouldn't be confusing. I mean, there was a time a long time ago where developers were really into what was termed at the time, hidden meat. So like you would have to move your mouse around on the page.

You have to make.

Something to happen. And then when you oh, that's where that's where the menu is.

It's hidden third Tuesday of every month.

It's hidden somewhere.

As long as it's raining.

Those trends have tended to go away. There are, as you said, trends which you can follow. But broadly speaking, it's not hard to create something that doesn't offend and you should aim for that at the very least.

Well, I think there as well, you're sort of touching on something slightly different as well, which is more around the sort of general user experience and the way that content is organised on a website. And I think that's definitely worth touching on too, because like, what makes a good website? I mean, like, like you just said, if, if people can't find the information that they need to find, that is a bad website. So, you know, along with all the decisions that you have to make about the aesthetics of the website and how it looks, you also have to think really carefully about how people are going to use it, and how you're going to showcase the bits that you want them to see. I mean, people do all kinds of weird things, like they'll have their most valuable product and the product that they know generates the majority of their revenue sort of tucked away, you know, three layers deep in a category page. And what will be on the home page will be something completely different and irrelevant. So I think, you know, the other thing that definitely makes for bad websites is when it's poorly organised and you can't find or navigate to the content that you need. Okay.

What about messaging?

Yeah, I think we've touched on that a couple of times.

Messaging, stroke, storytelling.

Yeah, exactly. So I think one of the things that's massively overlooked is that your website is probably people's first and potentially only exposure to your brand, right? To what you do and how you do it and all of that stuff. So you've got to use your website to tell a really convincing story. The best websites, the websites that I really like, going back to time and time again are the ones that do that. They have that kind of storytelling baked into every aspect of the their web design. Yeah.

So it's worth mentioning at this stage, I think the most popular episode of this podcast was the one we did with Bob Keiller. Um, about business. Business storytelling. That's right. It is quite an epic. Listen, it's about an hour and a half long. Um, he's the master storyteller and it's worth grabbing that episode. I can't remember what number it is, but it was it was fairly early on in our journey. It was probably in the first twenty or thirty anyway, you know, something like that. Anyway, it's worth grabbing that. Um, do you think a lot of businesses miss this idea of storytelling and messaging on their website and jump straight into we do X, we are dead good at doing X, we sell dead good x, y, z.

Right. And I think it's partly because people used to use websites very much as sort of brochures, right? It's just a space to talk about your company and sort of set your stall out. I mean, to be fair, you know, sometimes we use language like that too. But I think people take it far too literally. And you shouldn't really ever be, I don't think. Anyway, talking about yourself, um, very much on your website. The idea is to obviously tell customers a story about why they need what you're doing, or why what you're doing is better than what other people can do. And to really back that up. I mean, when we're talking about storytelling, we're not literally talking about like, tell people we're a fantastic company or this is the only place where you'll get this level of service or that sort of thing. It's also the storytelling that you tell with imagery, with things like, we talk a lot on this podcast especially, I always prattle on about trust signals, right? Like logos for businesses you've worked with, quotes from customers. They all tell a story too, and how you put those elements together and how you sort of weave a page together so that it, it sends all the right signals and tells the correct story to a customer. Is, is this the art of good, good web design, I guess. Really, isn't it?

Do you think in the B2B space that organisations miss this idea of telling a good story?

Yeah. I mean, to be fair, it's the same in a lot of B2C organisations as well. Um, you know, I think people really don't sort of understand how integral storytelling is to persuading people to buy something from you. I mean, I think that's effectively all marketing really is when you drill down into it. It's how we tell stories, isn't it? And how we find things to, to sort of persuade people. And I think ultimately, when it comes to B2B websites, especially, they are very guilty of putting sort of function first. You know, we do this, we can make you this, we can design a boiler, not a story about, you know, how or why they design boilers and what those boilers are used for and where you can see them in action and that sort of thing, which is actually what people want to know. I think a lot of the time.

Yeah. And far be it for me to challenge, um, the, the received wisdom on this subject. Um, we're obviously alluding to, um, Simon Sinek and they start with why? Yeah. You know, tell people, you know, why you do what you do kind of thing and maybe then who you do it for. And then the last thing, oh, by the way, this is what we do. Um, you know, and in the B2B space, because we're, you know, what makes a good B2B website? I, I think, you know, it would be possible to have a, have conversations with some businesses who would find it very difficult to have a serious conversation about getting a good story, putting together a good story, um, to present to potential customers on their website because they would say, look, you know, you know, we sell gaskets, mate, you know, we sell gaskets. That's, that's what we do, you know, gaskets for valves. That's all we do. We just sell gaskets. What possible story could we tell around this idea of selling gaskets for valves?

Maybe. Maybe you're right. And, you know, to be fair, like I am, I guess fairly naive, um, in this regard, but it's been my experience that every time I've actually sat down with somebody who runs what seems to be a very boring and workaday company, when you actually drill down and start saying, well, okay, but what, what does actually differentiate you from your competitors? What are you doing differently? They do always have something to say. It is very rarely the case that anybody is just sort of churning out the same product as anybody else, exactly the same price point in exactly the same way, for exactly the same reason. I just don't, I think in our heads that's sort of like the, you know, I mean, like the sort of the default position is, oh, yeah. You know, they're just manufacturing companies. They make stuff. I'm sure it's all the same. But I think in reality, when you drill down, there is always more meat to it than that. There's always something, some interesting sort of nugget to uncover.

Do you think in some of the very dry spaces that businesses in the B2B, B2B, um, Rena, operate. Do you think in some of those very dry spaces, um, customers expect a story as opposed to like it's purely transactional. I need, um, you know, an Acme two, seven, nine and I don't care about you. How much do you sell the Acme two, seven, nine four because they sell it for fifty quid. Was that what was that. Forty quid. Right. I'll buy it off.

Yeah. Maybe.

I don't want to know your story. I'm not interested in your business. Your brand doesn't excite me. I'm not. It. Just sell me the Acme. Whatever I called it. Two, seven, nine.

I'm not convinced. And I might be wrong, but I'm not convinced. That's how the human brain works at all. You may well think that you are primarily motivated by price, or that you are shopping only on price, and that this is the product. You don't care who you get it from, as long as it's the cheapest price. But I guarantee you that if you actually find a website that sells that that product at a really good price, but looks crap and doesn't tell any kind of convincing story, and you put it next to a website that charges ten percent more, but tells a really compelling story about their years of experience and the trust and credibility they've built up in their industry. You will always buy from the second company. And I, you know, I may be wrong, and I'm perfectly willing for anybody listening to challenge me on that, but I genuinely think the human brain really does like knowing at the end of the day, we buy off companies. Yes, but we don't buy off sort of faceless entities. We buy off people that we want to trust. And I think that is a huge part of the the decision making process.

Think about Amazon. I mean, my, I use Amazon a lot. Um, I'm never happy unless there's an Amazon parcel on its way.

Yeah.

Uh.

one of them.

I was, um, we're getting close to the first gig with the band and Peter has done some research for in-ear monitors. Um, and he found these headphones. I was at a party, former Red evolution employees party on Saturday night, and I got a WhatsApp from Peter about nine o'clock Saturday night, and he said, I've. These have arrived. They're great. Um, I'm I'm, you know, dead pleased with them. Um, he did some, he'd done some research, so I ordered them, uh, nine o'clock Saturday night and they arrived at lunchtime the next day, Sunday. And I went off for band practice at one o'clock with them in my pocket. And for me, that speed of delivery is really important. When I think about Amazon, I think about like anything or everything and anything I want tomorrow kind of thing. That's the story they tell me. I don't even care if it's a bit more expensive. It usually isn't, but I don't even care if it's a bit more expensive because for me that that you.

Probably don't even look.

It's going to arrive.

No, and that's that's right. That's the genius of Amazon's marketing, right? They are the go to people if you want it quick and you want it at a reasonable price point, you just go to Amazon, right? And that really is the genius of it because those products are absolutely available elsewhere for cheaper. They always are. But you don't care because you don't care, and you trust them to have it with you by tomorrow. And that's.

Well, that's another thing. I know that they will. Yeah. Ninety nine times out of one hundred, they will deliver on that promise. If it stays in the little green writing that if you order this now, it'll arrive tomorrow, then you believe it and you order it.

But look there. I mean, we're talking about what makes for a good website and that that sort of messaging, those little signals scattered throughout those little green sort of you can have this by tomorrow with a little tick next to it. I mean, that's people spend millions of pounds sort of developing these and refining and perfecting these ideas so that when somebody looks at your website, they think, ah, yeah, this is telling me all the things I need. I trust this, I'm going to buy it. And that's.

That's the messaging. And the story is all about building that trust.

Yeah, I think so.

Safe pair of hands. I've said it too many times already.

I think it's about building trust. I think it's also about differentiating yourself, because I think that's the other thing that a lot of B2B businesses are very guilty of not realising is that, you know, if you are in a crowded marketplace or even a marketplace where like three or four people do exactly the same thing as you, your website's a really good opportunity to set your stall out. You know, why you. Why are you different? What makes you the unique. You know, sort of option here? Why should people consider you and not your competitors? And I think a lot of people just sort of miss that and they just go straight for the this is the product we sell. This is the price point, which okay.

Okay. Kind of wandered off into Amazon territory there. But, um, you know, I guess it's trying to unpick this idea of getting the messaging right and spending time on it, no matter what type of business you're in. Uh, we're pretty much convinced that that is worth investing time in.

Absolutely.

Um, and is there anything else we can prod into and peel back where, where messages. It's hard getting it right. It's hard.

It's really.

Hard. And you should experiment with it. And you know, you can. Yeah, do conversion rate optimisation, try different messaging, see what seems to resonate, see what seems to improve, um, engagement or contacts. We've found certainly playing around with some of the pages we're working on at the moment on our site, that we've told a more comprehensive story on those pages, and we've seen engagement significantly increase.

Yeah.

And that's in terms of dwell time, the number, you know, the amount of time people are spending on those pages.

And that's just been simple things like sometimes it's been as little as changing the heading on a page because again, you know, one of the things that we see time and time again is that people will like, I was reading a really interesting thing the other day, and that was about the way that people digest websites and about how we always think that a website is a bit like a book, as in people are going to sit and study it. And in actual fact, people are just skim reading, right? And one of the things that I think is really interesting is we will do things like tweak a heading on a page and that will increase dwell time. It will, it will make people stick on the page when they would have bounced off. I think it's little tiny things like that. It's the headings, it's titles, it's things that people's eyes can kind of skip, skip over. And if it says the right thing, if it says the perfect thing, they'll stick around. And that's probably where I think most of the good stuff is. Really. Mhm.

Okay. So what else we've talked about? Um, the look and feel the design and said what we said about that without going over it. Again, we've talked about messaging, so we should have good design define good. David.

Yeah.

Good design. Yeah. Good enough. Uh, we should have good strong messaging. Um, what else?

I think one of the things that it's probably worth talking about is like content as in enough meat on the website. And I guess I don't want to stray back into what we were just talking about with messaging, but I think having enough of a website is an important consideration. A lot of websites, especially in the B2B space, are very thin. You know, it'll be a homepage, an about us page, maybe a services or a product section of the website that lists various things. And that'll be it. And I think a lot of the time, like one of the things that we found, for example, on our own website is a lot of people spend quite a bit of time reading the About Us page or, you know, the peripheral content around there that you know about the team and who we are and what our expertise is. People want something to really dig into. It's not enough to just have a brochure online anymore. That has to be real sort of depth to it.

And do you think in traditionally, um, in the B2B space that websites have been very much kind of we do this, we sell this, we provide these services.

Yeah.

That's enough.

Yeah, exactly. And some of them, like you look at them and they're almost just like a product catalog and you're like, that's not if I, you know, it's interesting because we're talking about HR earlier. And one of the things that it and this is a client of ours makes HR software. And one of the things I learned quite recently while doing some research for that client is that the process of buying HR software for an organisation to sort of sign off on that purchasing decision is actually very convoluted. They have to go through a whole vetting process where you make sure the vendor is up to scratch. And one of the things I think is really interesting is lots of websites don't provide enough information to do that. There just isn't enough detail on there for you to actually look at it and say, oh yeah, I can definitely say that this is going to be a trustworthy and reliable vendor that meets these criteria because it's just, you know, it is just a catalog effectively. And that's, that just doesn't fly. I don't think anymore. Okay.

It's unusual, I think now to find, um, websites in the B2B space that are really thin on content. Most of them are, well, a lot of them have upped their game. They've significantly upped their game, haven't they? They've recognised that having content helps them perform better in search, which in line leads to more visitors to the website, which leads to more potentially anywhere enquiries. And that obviously leads on to new customers and revenue. And, you know, we're all about using websites to generate revenue. And I think people, broadly speaking, get that, don't they?

Um, I know Maybe you'd like to think they do. I think the reality of the situation is when you actually stop and look at a lot of websites, it's really obvious that somebody at some point has told someone in the organization, are you actually need a bit more content, otherwise your website's not going to work. And they've gone away and they've said, oh shit. Like, I'm gonna write three hundred words of content, five hundred words of content, and they force themselves to write something. And that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about using your website to share like genuine expertise, to add real value, put time and effort into creating content. No, you're looking at.

No, I don't disagree. No I'm not, I'm not. But I think when, you know, when we have conversations with people who don't quite get how valuable an asset a website can be, I think that's the bit that they don't understand. They don't first of all, they don't want to share. You don't want to give away the crown jewels, but they don't want to share their knowledge. They don't want to give that away. They kind of just want people to, well, let's be very careful and not mention this client. But basically we've got a client over in the states and they more or less want to say, we know loads of stuff that will make your life easier, but we're not going to tell you any of it. You have to get in touch with us and then we'll tell you.

Yeah.

That's somewhat paraphrasing, but I'm right.

It's pretty much the the thing. Yeah, they, they have all this really deep. I mean, yeah, it's a forty, fifty year old company and they've been going for all this time and sort of developing this excellence. And now they don't want to share it with people.

But I can see where they're coming.

From. Yeah. Yes. But again.

As I said, you don't want to give away the crown jewels.

But like I was saying before, it's back to that whole storytelling thing. What story are you telling potential clients or customers? If you say, I know loads of stuff, but I'm not sharing it with you? Like, would you be convinced by that if I said, oh, David, I can make your golf go faster? And you said, how? And I said, well, I can't share that with you, but I can do it. Would you trust me? Probably not.

Uh, well, that's a good example, a good car. You know, we like a car analogy.

We do? Yeah. It's a contractually.

Obliged to, like one of our clients does, um, you know, remapping of cars now, you know, they would, um, in fact, coming back from Devon, I stopped there and got the motorhome remapped. They didn't explain exactly what they did. I know they plugged a computer into it, and I know that they did some stuff to it, and it definitely improved the performance and the fuel consumption. They didn't go into the detail of what they did so that, you know, they wouldn't on their website publish the actual maps. They wouldn't say download this map here they are sort of thing.

Sorry. Yeah, no, exactly. But that's the sort of the point I'm making or trying to make. Um, probably quite badly is that there's a huge difference between withholding knowledge and, and giving knowledge away in such a way that you seem experienced and you are obviously authoritative on the subject, but you don't actually give people enough to do the thing. I think that's the the sweet spot you're looking for. You want enough content on there for somebody to read it and say, oh yeah, these guys definitely know what they're about. They definitely know what they're doing, but not so much so that you're effectively telling your competitors how you do what you do.

All right. So, so content, you know, in a nutshell, and we've talked about this a lot in previous podcasts, but content is a vital part of B2B. So we've covered the look and feel. We've covered the headline messaging, uh, we've covered now the content and the content. And you've alluded to it, the content should include things like, you know, these are some of our customers. This is what people have said about us. Here's some case studies about, you know, successful outcomes and you know, what we did for the people, etc. just to kind of because, you know, it's, it's like you're trying to persuade a complete stranger, right?

Yeah. And so I really hate the phrase thought leadership. It sort of drives me nuts at the moment because I just yeah, it's an overused phrase, but I do think it's important, especially in the B2B space, to be doing stuff that is sort of, you know, around the idea of being a thought leader, of sort of knowing what you're talking about, being an industry expert and sort of showcasing that. Because otherwise, like you say to a total stranger, there are sixteen other companies claiming to have thirty years experience in whatever niche you're in and claiming to do just as good a job as you. You've got to think, you know, put yourself in your customer's shoes. How are you going to differentiate between those people? Well, like, yeah, okay, maybe one of them will have a super slick and shiny website and maybe one of them will have, you know, fantastic testimonials. But ultimately it is all going to come down to who tells the most convincing story about their experience and their expertise.

One thing when it comes to content, which just just want to touch on, in conclusion, as we as we wrap things up, um, this avoid stating the obvious. And we see this quite a lot in B2B organisations. Um, you know, I'm trying to think of an example and I'm struggling, but like, um, for example, if you said like, you know, we design, um, uh, defibs that actually save people's lives. It's like, well, what kind of a given? You know what? It's a really stupid example. But we see companies making a virtue of and talking about stuff that this should. Absolutely. It's just a given that if you're an accountancy firm, that you've got qualified people and that you are, you do things by the book and you're an honest and you're honest, you know what I mean? Yeah, it's kind of.

Went in slightly different direction.

I think.

We all have different.

Expectations. I think going back to messaging, I think that's where people, you know, like, like we really value our customers. It's like, well, you shouldn't be in business if you're not right.

And I don't want to get too like wanky here. We're not the best people to, to sort of talk about the ephemeral aspects of this in any great detail. But I think this is because a lot of organisations just don't put enough time or effort or energy into working out what their actual sort of value proposition or unique selling point or whatever is It's stuff like that where it's like, oh, we put our customers first. I think that kind of messaging comes from like people trying to do stuff off the cuff. It's like, we've got to say something good and virtuous. So we'll just say the most sort of banal, you know, sort of everyman thing we can. And I don't think that ever resonates. That never lands with people. Like you see it all the time. Just sort of hokey messaging that just falls flat on its face. It's like, you've got to actually spend time drilling down and working out. What is it that we do differently? Like, what do we actually want to say to people? Because if you don't put that thought in, I think people do pick up on it very quickly.

Yeah. One of my favorites is, and it's, it's, it's, it's abused. I really don't like it is, um, you know, whatever, whatever line of work you're in, like, say, for example, I'm going to go back to accountants. You know, we're passionate about accountancy.

No f*cking way. No way! Really?

I know. Yeah.

That's all I ever wanted was to work with a passionate accountant.

I know everybody in in this day and age is passionate, aren't they? It doesn't mean anything.

Or an evangelist.

Avoid. Avoid that. Avoid telling people how passionate you are about whatever it is you do.

Because yeah, just find something actually meaningful to say.

Keep it simple.

And the other thing I think it's worth pointing out about content is that it's not all necessarily written content. I think the other thing when we're talking about what makes good and bad websites, and I'm aware that you want to wrap this up soon, but the other thing we have to talk about is things like video, audio, like podcasts and things like that. It's creating an experience that people can engage in in many different ways, and not just giving people one way to consume the information. I think that's quite important in this day.

Yeah, I think we're guilty of that. I think it would we should with every piece of written content we produce, we should provide, um, you know, a way to listen to it or watch it instead. Um, I think that's right. Just to make sure that, you know, I, I'm a huge fan of video.

That's the thing. And I think a lot of people just don't read online anymore. They prefer to listen or watch or whatever. So you have to cater to that and not just be sort of stuck in the mud with it, really.

That's right. So what makes a good B2B website? Um, well look and feel messaging content. Avoid the cliches. Make sure that you're talking about the things that your ideal customers want to know about and they're searching for information on. Again, we've talked about this in previous podcasts, but based on what we're seeing, um, it's still that message still isn't quite landing, um, as readily as it should be. I think so hopefully that's been useful. You've been listening to Alex and Dave on the Digital Marketing From The Coalface podcast. If you want to come on the show and.

Tell us how wrong we are.

Tell us how wrong we are about everything we talk about or anything that we talk about. You can get in touch with us, um, at red evolution dot com. Other than that, that's episode ninety seven in the bag. And we're trying to think of something different to do for episode one hundred, which is fast approaching. Um, who knows? I'll think of something. Anyway, thanks for listening.