4 min read

Don't be fooled. Building B2B Websites is not Rocket Science.

Picture of Rebecca Gonzalez Rebecca Gonzalez : Apr 12, 2021

HubSpot B2B Marketing

Breaking the Mold in Marketing & Sales (6)

Don't let some agency fool you. 😲 A new B2B website does not need to take 6-12 months and cost your entire annual marketing budget. Building websites from the code up and using a designer to create every single page's look and feel is old school and wastes your time and money. 💲

The faster you crank out your new website, the faster it will start converting visitors to leads for you. We have a streamlined process that we use to rip the bandaid off on website builds and we are happy to share it with you to strip away the myths surrounding website complexity.

The sections and navigation to be included are standard. Your prospects expect certain content sections and behavior from the navigation. When you deviate from this formula using ultra-creative design, you hurt 🤕 your chances of converting prospects to leads.

Components of your B2B Website Design Project

Menu - The menu needs to include the essential components you find on any B2B website (check our messaging template for full details).
Messaging - We recommend businesses focus on their messaging (copy) and give it 50% of their website build effort. Messaging is the most important part of your website. Copy is what Google reads, and this cannot be over-emphasized.
Brand - Having a consistent brand is also critical with colors, fonts, and design hierarchy delineated. Guidelines and samples of illustrations or stock photography will support your web team in building a cohesive website.
Design Templates can take care of the rest to plug critical content into a uniform website developed in half the time, without the need to pay for hours of custom website design.

Resources needed for your B2B website project

Project Manager - A good PM is someone who keeps the ducks in a row, the kittens in line, and the puppies in the pen. You cannot scrimp on this resource. This person makes it happen, settles all arguments and gets you over the finish line quickly. They help the team decide on the sections and the menu structure. They are also front-line QA on every single page.
Messaging - This resource is committed to providing 100% of the copy you need on all pages and running it by any person necessary for approval. They build the pages in Google Docs or your collaboration tool of choice, with appropriate images, and the web person takes these docs and converts them to web pages once approved. This person is tough to outsource to an agency unless the agency really knows and understands your product. And, definitely not an agency you just started working with. Our best projects had the messaging lead come from in-house.
Design - Provides all design guidance, brand, fonts, images, colors, everything look and feel. They even can provide layouts for certain critical pages, like the home page and certain interior pages like products. They decide how the menu rollovers should look, CTAs, and the like. Many times they provide custom HTML for tricky situations.
Website Developer - This critical person hangs everything together from the docs provided by the Messaging role to the brand guidelines, within the framework of the website template selected by the team.
QA - It is required to have someone besides the team members check the work against the original documents. Formal QA guarantees a much smoother launch.

Benefits - Save Time and Money

A b2B website process run using our streamlined website process can take three to four months from start to finish. Traditional website design and development easily can take six to twelve months, due to too much design, lack of clarity and too little focus on the project end goals and deliverables.

Budget for a more streamlined process:

PM - $4-$8K
Messaging - $4k-$8K
Design - $4k-$8K
Development - $6K - $12K
QA - $2K to $4K
Contingency - $5K to $10K
Assets - Stock & website template - $5K

Total $30K to $55K

Let's be clear. We don't think building websites is easy. Honestly, it is a heavy lift. That is why we will only provide this service for clients we work with closely, who can commit to a more streamlined process that is tightly project managed.

Examples of B2B Websites Created in 3-4 Months

Below are three websites we developed following our streamlined process that have increased the client's website traffic and captured more relevant leads for their sales team to convert to paying customers.

SmartTRAK

1) SmartTRAK - SmartTRAK provides up-to-date marketing intel on industry trends, news, financial data, competitor developments in the medical device markets of orthopedics, wound care, neuro, and regenerative therapies. The team built this over a summer.

FreightPop

2) FreightPOP - FreightPop simplifies and streamline the logistics experience for manufacturers, distributors, e-commerce, and 3PL’s via their SaaS platform. This took 3 months.

Cyrano.ai

This website is small, but rich in design. It's built on one of the "out of the box" HubSpot CMS themes.

cyrano

B2B Website Streamlined Process

When you follow the process below, you should go from concept to a live website in 2-4 months. Keep in mind this 100% assumes you are using HubSpot's CMS. We tell you why here and here.

Step 1 - Pick a website template (called a Theme in HubSpot). We recommend using HubSpot's website and CRM platform, and we really like Helpful Hero's Theme Pack due to the myriad of design options available. But there are dozens of HubSpot Themes to choose from with more coming out every month.
Step 2 - Ensure your designer follows the template's restrictions, from designing the home page to the logo, colors, and fonts. If your designer is willing to color within the lines, you will have a beautiful and unique website that is also easy to stand up and maintain.
Step 3 - Make sure the copy is written for SEO and for the prospective customer. The copy needs to attract Google and other search engines, so your website is successfully served up on relevant searches. But it also needs to provide real value to your prospective leads. In this way, your website will be effective in attracting quality leads for your sales team—and not leads that will just waste time.

Many website teams fail to do this well. We have specific recommendations on writing successful copy here, including a website messaging template to help focus your messaging on every one of your website pages.
Step 4 - Once the design elements are selected, and the copy written, it is time to pull everything together.
Step 5 - QA with an outside project resource from tip to tail. This will ensure nothing is missed as your current team will be bleary eyed from this project.

Next, follow this 2-4 month timeline:

Website Development Timeline
STRATEGY PLANNING - Template, website design, & messaging decisions.	2-4 Weeks
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT - Draft copy for all website pages (Use template).	2-5 Weeks
BUILD OUT - Pull all the graphical elements and copy together to build the website pages.	3-5 Weeks
QUALITY ASSURANCE - Review of website pages and quality of copy and final Go Live!	1-2 Weeks

Get Started!

You can access the tools to start planning your high-converting website below. We believe planning menu, messaging, and CTAs are the critical first step in website design, vs. look and feel. No graphic design shop or website design agency will admit this to you. They don't make a lot of money if you stand up your website in three months using templates.