Businesses find it easier to design websites that promote products rather than services. I guess it’s because they are tangible items, designed to be used in a particular way, so content is simpler to write and easier to break up with images of the product. Does this result in a better experience though? And do B2B product sites influence the buying process as much as they could?
To test this I’ve chosen a well-known B2B product brand that should be getting high scores. JCB (www.jcb.co.uk) is an industrial giant, almost a household name, employing 6000 people in 150 countries. It supplies customers from governments to airports and the local hire centre. But does the website support the business in the way it could?
First impressions are excellent. The home page is contemporary and focuses on the JCB Diesel Max – the current holder of the diesel powered land speed record – and there’s even a movie to watch. You can’t fail to be impressed. However, first impressions don’t last.
Getting lost
Like many global businesses JCB has a vast and diverse audience to satisfy: customers and potential customers; a mix of channels and partners; employees and potential employees. Having been engaged by the attention-grabbing JCB Max, I suspect most user groups are left wondering, ‘where do I go next?’ The top level navigation is pretty clear with four choices – ‘About JCB’, ‘Products’, ‘Customer support’ and ‘Industry solutions’ – fine if you’re a customer or potential customer, but what about the media, potential employees or shareholders?Where should they go?
This lost feeling is partly reduced by a drop-down, second-level navigation with a total of 42 entry points. I suspect between five and 10 of these accommodate 80 per cent of the chosen entry points and would prefer them to be offered below the brand box to draw you in. Being a large site, it would benefit from a search option.
Two other things bother me about the navigation. Firstly, inconsistency: under ‘Products’ there’s a list of product areas, but sometimes it prefixes them with JCB – for example JCB Vibromax – and at other times it doesn’t. Sometimes it takes you to a new website and at others to a page within this site. This reduces confidence in labelling and affects the user experience – which can significantly affect the overall performance of the site. The other niggling thing is that the third level of navigation is positioned above the second. Admittedly, not a grave error but it makes it hard to picture the site structure so at times you can’t tell where you are.
Lacking in information
A worse sin from a sales point of view is the absence of a planned user journey. Each area of the site seems to act in isolation with no contextual linking, little opportunity to interact and an absence of a call-to-action. Perhaps it believes selling should be done by dealers on their own sites, but I doubt it. The dealer locator works well enough, but there’s no real information available about the dealers, no offer to arrange for a dealer to contact you and no encouragement to leave your details unless you click on the ‘Contact us’ button. If I were a dealer I’d expect more.
Manufacturers’ sites will always be the first port of call when looking at equipment like this. You expect the most accurate and up to date information. As a potential new user, you want to be able to look up specifications. You’d also benefit from a product selector tool.
Ironically, the JCB site probably generates a fair amount of traffic from search engines, but due mainly to brand strength. From an optimisation point of view, the site would perform better if user experience issues were addressed. More relevant content and better navigation, including a site map, better signposting and internal linking would have impact. Time spent on tagging could increase the SEO score to over 75 per cent.
So, it may feel easier to develop a product site than one for services, but the end result can be equally ineffective if not based around the needs of the user. I expected a score of 70 per cent plus. So to end up with less than 45 per cent on both tests is a real disappointment.
