In today's digital world, every business has a website. After all, your competitors have one, so you better get one too, right? But simply having a website because "everyone else does" is not a good enough reason on its own. You need to think carefully about what purpose your website serves and how it can benefit your business.

A thoughtfully designed and maintained website can provide tremendous value for financial services brands in three key areas: educating visitors, building credibility and authority, and generating and converting leads into customers. Let's look at each of these in more detail.

Educating website visitors

“Your website is a 24/7 educational resource for your potential customers,” explains Craig Freeman, Chief Growth Officer at brandformula. “Through well-written content and videos, you can share your industry knowledge, educate visitors on key topics and position your brand as an expert in your field. This content shows that you understand your customers' problems and can offer solutions.”

As per the oft-quoted stat from DemandGen, 70% of B2B buyers consume at least three pieces of educational content produced by a vendor before they engage with sales representatives. In other words, they’re only prepared to talk to you once they’ve got a grasp on your expertise.

Building credibility and authority

An impressive, professional-looking website lends credibility to your brand. Visitors will have more confidence in you when they see you have invested in a site that is thoughtfully organised, mobile-friendly and aesthetically pleasing.

Beyond the overall website design, the content itself also contributes to your brand authority.

“By consistently publishing high-quality, insightful content, you demonstrate your command of your subject matter,” says Craig. This content showcases your expertise and establishes trust with your audience. You know that you know your stuff – but you’ve got it all to prove to your audience.”

For instance, insurance companies publish risk insights, financial services firms build authority by posting market analyses, while law firms share updates and explanations of new rulings. These credibility-boosting contents separate you from competitors that find it more difficult to produce content.

As per a Technorati survey, 61% of senior executives feel more confident doing business with companies that share their expertise in blog form.

Generating and converting leads

Ultimately, most B2B brands invest in a website to generate and convert new business leads. How can your website attract your ideal prospects and turn them into customers?

Start by ensuring your website is optimised for conversions. For example, every page should have clear calls-to-action, encouraging visitors to download content, contact sales, sign up for a demo, or order a product. Simplify and shorten your lead capture forms to remove friction in the conversion process.

Conversion-focused content is also crucial. For instance, you may want to gate some premium educational content behind a lead capture form. Offer a free trial or demo of your software or service in exchange for the prospect's contact details. Create content specifically targeted to topics in your audience's buyer's journey.

“Once you capture leads, ensure you have the back-end infrastructure to nurture and qualify them,” says Craig. “Use marketing automation, CRM, email nurturing and sales enablement tools to turn your website visitors into satisfied, ongoing customers. Those leads need warming up before you arrive with the sales pitch.”

Lastly, keep things fresh. Companies that regularly refresh their website content generate 86% more leads year-over-year.

Getting practical about your website

So how can you put these ideas into practice and get more value from your B2B website? Here are a few tips:

• Audit your existing content and identify gaps related to your products, services and audience's interests. Fill those gaps with helpful educational content.
• Review your website pages and update calls-to-action, gated content offers and conversion paths. Test different CTAs, layouts and content offers to improve conversions.
• Analyse your web traffic metrics to see which pages attract the most visits, which content downloads lead to conversions and where visitors are dropping off. Use this to update priority pages.
• Set a regular content production schedule to keep your site fresh. Mix evergreen thought leadership content with time-sensitive commentary, like market trends.
• Promote your website content through other marketing channels - email, social media, paid ads - to maximise reach and drive more traffic.
• Continuously optimise website pages for keywords your audience searches for. This improves your search visibility and helps people of interest find your page.

While having a website is expected for today's B2B brands, getting real value from the website, takes a strategic mindset and ongoing optimisation. By investing the time, this will help to maximise its impact.

If time and expertise is lacking to optimise your website, that’s where brandformula can help. We craft websites that not only spotlight your brand in the most captivating and enlightening manner but also bolster your brand's presence across all digital and social media platforms – all while delivering tangible outcomes.

Find out more here or email Craig for some examples of the websites we’ve worked on recently.