The questions your website should answer (but probably doesn’t)

The questions your B2B website should answer (but probably doesn’t)

Most B2B websites are built to convey what the business wants to say, rather than what visitors need to know.

And visitors don’t arrive ready to patiently decode your positioning. They arrive with a handful of fast, instinctive questions. If your website answers them clearly, they stick around. If it doesn’t, they bounce.

This article shares the high-level takeaways from a webinar by Matthew Stibbe on the five questions your B2B website must answer, as well as the common traps that prevent good businesses from getting it right. Watch the webinar in full here.

The five questions every B2B website visitor is asking (almost instantly)

Whether they say it out loud or not, visitors land on your B2B website and rapidly try to work out:

What do you do?
Is it relevant to me?
Can I trust you?
What does it cost / what will it require?
What’s the next step?

A simple test: ask someone who doesn’t know your business well to look at your homepage for one minute, then answer those five questions. The gaps (and vague bits) become obvious fast.

What most B2B websites get wrong (and why)

When we review B2B websites, the same issues show up again and again:

The hero section is full of generalities (or worse, a rotating carousel trying to say three things at once).
The ideal customer is implied but never stated. Many businesses worry that being specific is “exclusionary”, so they say nothing meaningful at all.
Social proof is buried (or locked behind forms), instead of being surfaced early as evidence.
Calls to action are generic. “Get in touch” and “Let’s talk” don’t help someone choose a next step.
Navigation doesn’t reflect real audiences. Most sites serve multiple groups (prospects, customers, candidates, investors), but the structure doesn’t guide each of them.

So why does this keep happening?

The HiPPO problem

The Highest Paid Person’s Opinion dominates. Someone senior thinks the homepage should be ‘more visionary’ or ‘more premium,’ and it becomes difficult to balance aesthetics and instinct with evidence and user behaviour.

The ‘person in the mirror’ problem

When you know your product inside out, it’s easy to assume that if you just explain it (in your language), people will get it.

But B2B website visitors aren’t on a sales call. They need you to answer their questions in their words, quickly.

How people behave on a B2B website (and what that means for copy)

A few hard truths from usability research and real-world analytics:

People rarely scroll as far as you think

That area above the fold has to do an enormous amount of work. You have to earn the right to tell the longer story further down.

Long pages aren’t automatically bad, but the deeper you go, the fewer people see it.

‘Beautiful’ hero videos are often a conversion killer

Slow-loading, high-production hero media can undermine clarity. Your homepage is not a Super Bowl ad. It’s a decision-making tool.

Visitors scan (they don’t read)

People skim in an F-pattern (top line, then left side, then less and less attention as they go). That means:

Headlines and subheads matter disproportionately.
Short paragraphs win.
Every sentence needs to earn its place.

If someone only reads your headings, would they still understand the story?

The fastest way to improve your B2B website homepage (without a full redesign)

The good news: you don’t always need a rebrand to fix B2B website problems.

In many cases, the highest-impact improvements are relatively straightforward.

1. Rewrite the hero section for clarity

Above the fold, aim to make four things unmistakable:

What you do (in plain language)
Who it’s for
Why you’re different
One clear next step

A simple structure helps:

We help X do Y (so they can achieve Z).

Specific isn’t exclusionary. It makes the right people feel recognised.

2. Showcase trust signals early

Don’t hide your social proof. Use:

recognisable logos
short testimonials
numbers (’115 B2B tech companies’, not just ‘decades of experience’)
case studies that match your best-fit audiences

Concrete detail makes claims more real.

3. Replace generic CTAs with specific next steps

‘Let’s talk’ is too vague. Visitors need to know what will happen next.

Better CTAs describe the action:

‘Book a marketing strategy session’
‘Get a website review’
‘See pricing’
‘Explore case studies’

4. Audit your navigation for real audiences

A B2B website rarely has one, singular audience. Make it easy for each group to self-serve quickly and don’t overload the menu with internal organisational logic.