Last year at this time, the B2B industry was navigating a business climate that had been upended by a pandemic. As those shifts have given way to our current new normal, firms face just as much pressure to provide a positive digital experience for their customers in 2022.
Your B2B site needs to offer a positive reflection of your brand while encouraging engagement from your target audience. Whether you’ve recently refreshed your site’s user experience or are considering a full redesign, the digital marketplace remains in constant motion. Staying current with the latest website design trends and techniques in your industry communicates that your brand is in step with the times.
>> Interested in the Website Design Trends of 2023?
With in-person sales and marketing still facing an uncertain future, B2B firms should place a premium on delivering an engaging website experience.
Good website design is deeply connected with user engagement, which is exemplified by our analysis of the top B2B websites in the Fortune 500. As your firm continues to rely on its website to deliver results, the following 5 trends should be on your radar in the new year.
Website users have long gravitated toward scannable, eye-catching content. As B2B firms look to establish a quick connection with their audience, oversized text used in place of hero images provides a means to deliver a bold message to prospects in a way that’s punchy and to the point.
For example, the homepage for the customer experience firm ReshapeCXM pairs massive type with a stock image to communicate its positioning. As you scroll down the page, the type grows smaller to support more detail about the company. But the page’s bold, oversized text shares prominence with the graphics.
Similarly, Zoominfo and Zendesk use oversized text in place of a header image. Rather than relying on a graphic to tell their story, the firms use large, succinct typography to deliver a clear message. Fibery follows a similar path with understated imagery that allows the bold, brief type to stay in focus.
Oversized typography serving as graphic elements also forces you to keep titles on the page short. If the text is less scannable, the page layout will break.
Given the standards outlined in Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) were released in 2017, inclusive website design is not a new priority. But as awareness of accessibility has grown, B2B firms like yours should recognize the importance of accommodating an assortment of audiences.
Easy-to-use tools such as Coolors and Adobe’s Contrast Checker allow you to verify your site’s text and background colors are accessible for colorblind users. To verify a URL meets WCAG standards, you can use Wave as a plugin for Google Chrome.
Plus, your website’s visuals establish associations with its customers. Stock images featuring the same, stale images of boardrooms populated by older white men will make your firm look behind the times — or worse. To provide a more inclusive snapshot of their users, firms such as Salesforce and Atlassian use a mix of illustrations and photography that feature a broad range of demographics.
By adopting a few best practices, you can ensure your firm’s site is providing a positive experience for the widest possible audience.
As digital experiences have grown more integrated into our lives, prospective customers are reading less and scrolling more. Whereas prior years saw B2B firms aiming to encourage website users to keep scrolling for more information, now you need to deliver content that stops them in their tracks.
In the past, videos and product demos were one way to increase the amount of time users spent on pages. Now, your firm should incorporate interactive infographics into your pages to capture and retain your audience’s attention.
ROI calculators are one way to show the benefits of your products backed with hard data. The employee experience firm Aternity uses a calculator that provides an interactive, animated experience that demonstrates the impact of being their customer.
The advocacy group CarbonBrief uses an interactive map to illustrate energy sources around the country. Rather than attempting to list a rundown of facts, they use a vibrant graphic that illustrates a point in an attention-grabbing way that could also be useful for your B2B firm.
Technology allows for new opportunities to attract users’ attention as they progress through your firm’s site. Depending on your audience, you can use animation to transform the page while pulling visitors deeper into your site’s narrative.
For example, Asana uses animations that transform into different graphics that display relevant information as readers progress down the page. The Italian firm Teknosaba offers a similarly engaging experience by applying scroll-triggered animations that move figures across the page to “use” the firm’s products.
For as much interest as animated interactions create, they should be deployed carefully. If your firm’s audience is primarily composed of engineers or C-level decision-makers, motion graphics like these could be seen as too distracting or playful. But if you’re tapping into a broader customer base, animations like these enhance your firm’s storytelling and create an interactive user experience.
Recently, textures and patterns have frequently been applied on website pages to disrupt the visual flow for users and attract their attention. Now, firms are opting for more unconventional, organic shapes to serve the same purpose.
Suparise uses amorphous shapes to frame its illustrations and disrupt the page’s grid layout. Similarly, SpotOn uses organic shapes along with wave patterns to break up different sections and draw the eye. Memory also uses unconventional graphic elements paired with curling lines to create a distinctive visual experience and encourage users to venture further down the page.
If there’s one constant in the digital marketplace, it’s that the needs and expectations for your users will remain a moving target throughout 2022. By staying informed of the techniques adopted by your industry and your competitors as they pursue their business goals, your firm’s website can continue to stand apart this year — and beyond.
Clear Digital has been awarded 12 ADDYs by the American Advertising Federation of Silicon Valley, showcasing excellence in digital marketing and design across B2B sectors.
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