A B2B website isn’t just a digital brochure — it’s your hardest-working salesperson. In today’s buyer-driven landscape, functional web design can directly impact how leads are captured, nurtured, and converted. Whether you’re refreshing your site or starting from scratch, understanding how B2B web design influences revenue is key.
Below, we provide best practices to some of the most common (and critical) questions around B2B website development.
Navigation
B2B website navigation should be intuitive, minimal, and action-oriented. Think like your buyer: overwhelm them with tabs and options, and they’ll lose interest.
Some of the top items on our development team’s checklist include:
- Limit top-level navigation to 5–7 items
- Group related pages under logical dropdowns
- Make CTAs (“Schedule a Demo”, “Get in Touch”) visible in both the header and footer
- Use sticky navigation so key links are always accessible as the user scrolls
Root3 Bonus Rec: We use Microsoft Clarity (a heatmapping tool) to see where visitors click or drop off.
Structure
Your homepage should immediately answer three questions:
- What do you do?
- Who is it for?
- Why should they trust you?
It’s a little bit like a party invitation: let your guests know the key details (those Ws, like who, what, and why) right away.
That said, when it comes to structuring your homepage, take the answers to the three W questions above and weave them into a layout with the following elements:
Hero Section
Include a crisp value proposition and primary CTA
Social Proof
Client logos, testimonials, or key success stats
Short Intro Video
Also known as a sizzle reel (because it’s hot!) of your main product or services
Main Selling Points
Maybe these are program attributes, or a How It Works section. Make your case here.
Pathways for Different Buyer Types
Break outs for different industries, roles, or pain points that your service solves
Content CTAs
Newsletter signups or downloadable content like a whitepaper. Something that lets the visitor learn more about you without having to commit to booking a meeting or consultation.
Lead Generation
Sessions are fine. But for B2B websites that we design, our goal is to turn web traffic into a sales pipeline.
How do we do that? By thinking of each page as a landing page. With each scroll down the page, the visitor is greeted with a gentle yet persistent nudge toward conversion.
Here’s our cheat sheet for how we make our sites functional:
- Make multiple conversion points (demo requests, newsletter sign-ups, content downloads)
- Place those conversion points throughout the page (not just at the bottom)
- Use gated content sparingly (but strategically)
- Incorporate a live chat or chatbot functionality (as a HubSpot Platinum partner, this feature is included in many of our clients’ CRM packages)
- Integrate the site with your CRM to track and nurture leads
Content
B2B buyers want substance, not fluff. With the long sales cycles, buying committees, and complicated budgetary processes that many of our clients’ top prospects employ, it should come as no surprise that these buyers require content with a bit more sophistication than a “Which My Little Pony Are You?” quiz (btw Root3 is obviously Rainbow Dash, the bold one).
A B2B web design with a sophisticated content strategy should include:
- Solution pages tailored to specific use cases or industries
- Educational content like blogs, whitepapers, or videos that help buyers do their research
- Case studies and client testimonials that build credibility
- FAQs that tackle objections and reinforce expertise
- About pages that highlight leadership, mission, and differentiators
And don’t forget SEO! A functional B2B website should align its content with how buyers are searching for your services (B2B SEO strategy is a whole other topic).
B2B web design is about more than aesthetics. It’s about creating a comprehensive tool for your organization. And a powerful web tool generates positive user experience for its visitors, builds trust, and creates clear conversion paths.
If your website isn’t helping generate and qualify leads, it’s time to rethink the design strategy.
Need help making your site work harder? Let’s talk.
