Commerical internet - is it eating itself?

[FridgeMagnet]

This doesn't desperately surprise me to be honest, though it's good to have a "conversion rate" number to wave about. What else would people actually put on a b2b type site, if they're not selling anything through it? Hello, we're X, we do Y (plus here are some portfolio/case study links if you care, but you don't have to read them to go further) and here's how to get in touch.

More than that is either a waste of time or "hug content" - the sort of page you have because it reassures people that you're a professional, site maps, bio pages etc, and apparently that doesn't make much difference.

 

[ChrisFilter]

This doesn't desperately surprise me to be honest, though it's good to have a "conversion rate" number to wave about. What else would people actually put on a b2b type site, if they're not selling anything through it? Hello, we're X, we do Y (plus here are some portfolio/case study links if you care, but you don't have to read them to go further) and here's how to get in touch.

More than that is either a waste of time or "hug content" - the sort of page you have because it reassures people that you're a professional, site maps, bio pages etc, and apparently that doesn't make much difference.

Exactly. You look at most b2b sites and 99% of their website is fluff that no-one is ever going to read. Why would anyone bother?

The reassurance angle will bother some, but actually I suspect they'd be a very small minority. In a work environment you need a service, you google for it, you see the results. You want to be able to call them to get an idea of how they operate and whether they'd be able to help. If you can make it totally easy, and massively optimised to get them to call then you're already winning.

I didn't believe it myself until we started doing it, but it is incredibly successful.

 

[ChrisFilter]

I don't understand half of this post. Can someone please explain in language a techie can understand? What's a landing page? A/B? B2B?

A landing page is a single page website with headline information and a clear call to action, like this:

Pikachu's Business Services
Trusted partner to 60 of the FTSE 100
Best in town
THIS SERVICE - THAT SERVICE - THE OTHER SERVICE
Call us now for more information or enter your details below to receive a portfolio of our services

as opposed to a full brochureware site.

A/B testing is a feature of Google that allows you to display 2 different websites at the same address, and it analyses the behaviour of the visitors to the different sites and lets you know which is more successful as converting people (ie. clicking a link, filling in a form, clicking a 'chat now' button). You can do A/B/C/D testing and even testing of the same site with different layouts, images and the like. Fascinating stuff, genuinely.

B2B stands for business to business sales, as opposed to b2c which is business to consumer (ie. Argos selling to an individual).

Fucked if I'd ever use a company that made me call them to get basic information though, even if it's freephone.

What more information would you need? Let's say you were asked to manage the commission of your company's new website. What would you want to know? Costs? Well, you'd have to call anyway. Portfolio? Download it from the landing page. Skillset? You'd probably want to call anyway, as you probably wouldn't want to trust any company to be able to do what they say on their website.

 

[Wintermute]

A landing page is a single page website with headline information and a clear call to action

Well - not quite. A landing page is the page you land on. It's not a single-page website. I kind of agree with you in that the landing page on a site designed to generate leads should be concise and packed with calls to action, but not that a single page is better than a full site.

Let's say you were asked to manage the commission of your company's new website. What would you want to know? Costs? Well, you'd have to call anyway. Portfolio? Download it from the landing page. Skillset? You'd probably want to call anyway, as you probably wouldn't want to trust any company to be able to do what they say on their website.

Taking this example - I'd want to see previous work. I don't want to enter my details, I want to explore, poke about a bit. These guys build websites, I want to see how theirs operates. Not how effective the landing page is at enticing me to call, but how they build full-scale websites. And I should point out that any company prepared to lie about what they can do in an online portfolio is certainly prepared to do so over the phone.

It's an interesting point, though. I've done plenty of these landing-page microsites for clients and yes, they were great at generating traffic and leads and datacapture. But behind it all you had the main site, where people could delve in depth, and at leisure, into the company's offering. I think there's still a great demand - a necessity, even - for websites to maintain a depth of content that reflects the company - or at least how the company wishes to be seen.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Well - not quite. A landing page is the page you land on. It's not a single-page website. I kind of agree with you in that the landing page on a site designed to generate leads should be concise and packed with calls to action, but not that a single page is better than a full site.

You're right, of course. My apologies. In fact, the first one we did was a landing page with a link to the full brochureware site. The others have just been single page. One for office space in Brum is converting at 17% on average for the last 2 weeks. Amazing stuff.

Taking this example - I'd want to see previous work. I don't want to enter my details, I want to explore, poke about a bit. These guys build websites, I want to see how theirs operates. Not how effective the landing page is at enticing me to call, but how they build full-scale websites. And I should point out that any company prepared to lie about what they can do in an online portfolio is certainly prepared to do so over the phone.

Well, the portfolio is available to download in pdf format, but I take your point re: details.

I know what you mean, on the whole; I'm the same, I like exploring. I guess the reality is that in the SME marketplace, no-one has much time to analyse several suppliers previous work so just gets straight on with calling them and getting proposals sent out.

It's an interesting point, though. I've done plenty of these landing-page microsites for clients and yes, they were great at generating traffic and leads and datacapture. But behind it all you had the main site, where people could delve in depth, and at leisure, into the company's offering. I think there's still a great demand - a necessity, even - for websites to maintain a depth of content that reflects the company - or at least how the company wishes to be seen.

Yeah. I don't think the single landing page setup is for everyone, but in certain cases it can be massively effective.

The other thing we're finding is that ugly and blocky is converting far better than smooth and slick. This might just be the market though. One of our companies sells property developments in the Med (like Polaris World 'make sure you pay for your property, a fair price' ) and in A/B testing the fugly blocky one whipped the beautiful, slick, flowing site.

 

[gnoriac]

Surely it depends what the business is? For example, what content could you put on, say, a clutch care centre's site, other than where it is and the phone number? OTH if you're selling computers, people are most definitely gonna want a full-scale, detailed brochure.

 

[ChrisFilter]

Surely it depends what the business is? For example, what content could you put on, say, a clutch care centre's site, other than where it is and the phone number? OTH if you're selling computers, people are most definitely gonna want a full-scale, detailed brochure.

Yeah, depends massively. Single-page landing pages are only appropriate for a minority of businesses; on the whole professional b2b services.