B2B website design: what buyers check before they call you

6sense surveyed nearly 4,000 B2B buyers for its 2025 Buyer Experience Report. On average they first contacted a seller 61% of the way through their buying process, measured in time, on journeys that lasted nearly a year. And four deals out of five went to the supplier that was already their favourite before that first contact (6sense).

So most of the shortlist is written before the first call, from what buyers can find without you.

That holds whether you sell valves, software or a service. Much of the detail below is about technical buyers, because they ask the most precise questions.

Which B2B websites are worth copying?

The ones that answer a buyer’s question before the call. Here are six, each with one move worth borrowing. I checked every one of them in October 2026.

• Swagelok, fittings and valves. Product pages share one specifications table, from body material to connection size, with the PDF catalogue and the CAD drawing a click away.
• igus UK, plastic bearings and cable chains. Engineers can order a free sample box and test the parts in their own machine before they specify them. Online tools and a CAD download portal are a click from every page.
• Mark3D, UK partner for Markforged 3D printers. “Request a demo part” sits at the top of the home page, so a buyer can hold a printed part before buying a printer.
• Redway Networks, WiFi and networks for schools and businesses. “Get a Quote” and the phone number stay in the header, and the menu splits by sector: education, warehouses, offices.
• Verian, research and evaluation for governments. Case studies filter by topic, from public health to crime and justice, so a buyer finds work like theirs in two clicks.
• HubSpot, marketing and sales software. Each plan shows its price and what it includes, with a table to compare them.

What do B2B buyers look for first?

The answer to their own question. An engineer opens a supplier’s site asking: will this fit our system? What does it need from us? Someone buying a service wants to know whether you’ve solved this problem before, for a company like theirs.

Put the answer where the eye lands. On a product page, the few figures that decide the fit go above the text, such as the pressure range and the connection sizes for a valve. A buyer can tell at a glance whether the product deserves a second look, and the description underneath is there for whoever wants the detail.

Then give them something to take away. 79% of engineers and technical buyers count the datasheet among the most valuable content when they research a significant purchase. 37% say the same of CAD drawings (TREW Marketing and GlobalSpec, 2025). Put the datasheet on the product page, one click away.

Which pages does a B2B website need?

One for each question a buyer asks before calling you:

• Home: what you make or do, for whom, one piece of proof and the next step.
• A page for each product line or service, all on the same layout.
• Case studies or references, sorted by sector, so a buyer finds a company like theirs.
• About: where you are, what you’re certified for, and the people a buyer will deal with.
• Downloads: datasheets, catalogues and CAD files, also linked from each product page.
• Contact and request for a quote, with a short form.

Several people read these pages, and each reads different ones. In 6sense’s survey the buying groups averaged more than ten people, on purchases of $250,000 on average. In a smaller deal it may be an engineer, someone in purchasing and a director.

The engineer reads the product pages and downloads. Purchasing looks for lead times, terms and how the price is built. The director reads the case studies and the about page. Give each of them a way in from the menu, one click deep.

How should a product page be laid out?

The same way on every page. Buyers compare suppliers, and they compare your products with each other, so one layout makes both easy.

Photos of the product in use along the top, then the technical details in a fixed order, with the highlights beside them. Once a buyer has read one page, they can read them all. The PDF datasheet follows the same order, so a buyer who prints it finds each figure where they expect it. If you sell abroad, keep that order in every language.

Should a B2B website show prices?

If you can, yes. 40% of technical buyers name questions about pricing or stock among the things that first moved them to contact a salesperson (same TREW survey). Only the complexity of the solution comes up more often, at 47%.

Answer it on the site, and the buyers who call already know you fit their budget. If your prices depend on the configuration, show two or three typical ones, or explain what moves the price.

For products with many options, a configurator can do that work. Engineers value tools that let them choose on their own: 66% name product selection tools among the most useful when they research a purchase, 59% comparison tools and 44% configurators (TREW).

A configurator is one of the cases where a template stops being enough. The buyer chooses the parts and sees what each choice does to the price. The request for a quote then arrives with the configuration attached, and your salesperson starts the call from there.

What makes a buyer trust a supplier they haven’t met?

First your site, then your customers. In the same TREW survey, an informative, well-maintained website scored as the strongest sign of a credible supplier, 4.0 out of 5. References from past customers followed at 3.8 and case studies with well-known brands at 3.6, while a prominent sponsorship at a trade show scored 2.8.

So give every piece of proof a name or a number:

• A case study per sector: the client, the problem, what you supplied and one measured result.
• A reference with a person’s name and role.
• Certifications with the standard and the certificate number, such as ISO 9001.
• The people a buyer will deal with, from the engineers to whoever answers the quote.
• Dates that show the site is looked after: recent news, the current catalogue.

How does a visit become an enquiry?

When the next step is easy to find and costs the buyer little:

• Keep a quote button in the header of every page, with the phone number beside it, as Redway does.
• Ask only for what you need to reply: name, company, email, product and quantity. Send the form to your CRM, so whoever replies sees what was asked.
• Offer a smaller step before the quote, such as a sample, a demo part or a call with an engineer. 26% of technical buyers say interest in a demo first moved them to contact a salesperson (TREW).

How do buyers find you on Google and in AI answers?

Through what’s written on your pages. 94% of the buyers in 6sense’s survey used AI chat tools during the purchase, most often to compare suppliers, without relying any less on the suppliers’ own content. Technical buyers rate their trust in AI answers at 4.4 out of 10, and 73% name supplier websites among their sources when they research a purchase (TREW). Your site is where they check.

Google asks for no special files or markup to appear in its AI features (Google, December 2025). It asks for the basics: important content in text, pages linked to each other, structured data that matches what’s visible. On a B2B site that means:

• The deciding figures written as text on the product page as well as in the PDF.
• A page for each product line or service, linked from the menu and from related pages.
• Each page in every language you sell in. Google can show each version to people searching in that language, so a translated product page brings in searches as well as readers.

Speed counts too. Google’s Core Web Vitals ask for the main content within 2.5 seconds, a response to a tap or click within 200 milliseconds and a layout that doesn’t jump. Google says this is what its ranking systems seek to reward (Google). In 2025 only 48% of websites passed all three on mobile (HTTP Archive).

What does a B2B website cost in the UK?

From £12,495 to £40,000 and more, at three UK agencies that specialise in B2B and publish their prices. Here is what they listed in October 2026:

• Appeal Digital: from £12,495 + VAT for a site built from a standard set of 20 to 25 components, with strategy, design, build and the SEO migration included. Usually 12 to 16 weeks, up to six months with ecommerce.
• Bigfork: £15,000 to £35,000 for a bespoke B2B site, four to six months from start to finish (article of 15 October 2026, VAT not stated).
• Rudo: from £17,000 with up to 12 page templates, from £25,000 with up to 25, from £40,000 for complex builds (VAT not stated).

What moves the price is mostly the number of page types and what the site has to connect to, such as your CRM, a stock system or a configurator. Copy, photos and video made for you add to it, and so does moving an old site without losing its Google traffic. For smaller sites and how to read a quote, see bespoke website design.

Before you commit to a figure like these, you can see a piece working. My fixed-price prototype costs €450, no VAT added, and comes off the quote in full if we go ahead within sixty days. If you’d rather have the site and everything around it looked after month by month, the subscription is €4,500 a month for the first three months, then €4,000, no VAT added.

How do you build a B2B website, and who with?

In this order, so the design follows what buyers ask:

1. List the people who buy from you and the questions each asks before calling.
2. Map the pages that answer them, and gather what you already have: datasheets, CAD files, case studies, certificates.
3. If you have a site, check in Search Console which pages bring visitors, and plan a permanent redirect from each old address to its new one.
4. Build one product page first and show it to a customer who hasn’t seen it.
5. Design the other page types, on a content management system your marketing team can edit without a developer.
6. Launch, then check which pages bring enquiries.

Who builds it depends on the site. A template on WordPress or Webflow is enough when your products fit a standard page and nobody configures them online. A specialist agency suits a large site with several integrations and a marketing team to brief it. One person who handles the whole project suits a company that would rather explain things once, and that’s how I work.

Is your current site doing its job?

Look for the signs that it holds sales back:

• Changing a price or a datasheet needs a developer.
• Buyers call to ask what the product pages should already say.
• Each product page is laid out differently.
• The specs exist only inside PDFs.
• Enquiries arrive without the product or the quantity.

If several sound familiar, the redesign guide shows how to start without losing your Google traffic. Then try the five-second test that usability researchers use (Lyssna’s guide). Show your home page for five seconds to someone who doesn’t know your company. Then hide it and ask three questions.

• What does this company sell?
• Who to?
• What would you do next?

Even three people tell you a lot. If two of them get the first answer wrong, change the line at the top.