Style Advice for B2B Website Design – Jermaine Reyes

As soon as a new B2B client joins us, I know the website redesign will be coming down the pipeline, so I Google their website the instant their name’s officially added to our roster. Scroll down the results, click, and analyze: the website copy conveys squishy messaging that isn’t very clear, it houses a bizarre layout that escapes logic or intuition, isn’t search engine optimized - which these days, is just basic - and the images are generic, lifeless, and poor.

Pictures matter. Contrary to what advertisers (and even some marketers) tell you, not all pictures are worth looking at; yet, we are exposed to images all the time. What’s important and not important about a website’s pictures will depend on a mix of variables: context, content, action, composition, cropping, lighting and more. When these variables cohere—when they just gel—what we see are not just images per se, but a style.

A style is hard to come by. It’s robust in the sense of being unique to a client’s identity, yet resistant to digital fads, which come and go by the minute. A style speaks beyond the brand, to the way the company’s world is viewed—through products, services, practices and people—in the eyes of employees, management and customers.

You can shop at Dollarama, H&M, or Holt Renfrew and find a style. You can shop at Getty or iStock and find a style that reflects online what’s already there in bricks and mortar. But as with any style, whether individual or corporate, it starts with knowing who you are.

Need style advice? Come and ask us.