Maybe you’ve seen one of those large banners across your Google Analytics property: “Universal Analytics will no longer process new data in standard properties beginning July 1st, 2023. Prepare now by setting up and switching over to a Google Analytics 4 property.” Seems problematic, right? Such a warning rings an alarm and raises several good questions to digital marketers, including: What is GA4? Should I switch now? Why is Google making me change? How do I switch? Will I still be able to access my data from previous years? If your mind is buzzing with these questions about your marketing analytics data you’re not alone. Luckily Bluetext has done its research and is here to answer some frequently asked questions and quell any lingering fears over this transition. This article will empower you to make an informed decision about Google Analytics 4.

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What are Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4?

Universal Analytics (UA) is Google’s third iteration of its popular web analytics service. If you’ve logged on to Google Analytics in the past decade, you were more likely than not using UA. When UA launched in 2012, it was quite a technological leap, adding advanced features in cross-platform tracking and custom dimensions. It shaped Google Analytics from simply being a page view tracking platform to a robust data reporting and attribution tool that could compete against some of the largest web-oriented business intelligence platforms, like Tealium. Most importantly, Google provided nearly the whole feature set free of charge.

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is simply Google’s newest iteration – think of it as a new generation of analytics technologies. The web has transformed significantly since the early 2010s, and Google is merely re-platforming analytics to match today’s realities. GA4 launched in 2019 to little fanfare but only recently gained significant traction in March of this year due to Google’s landmark announcement that GA4 will be the only analytics service it supports in 2023.

Why is Google Switching to Google Analytics 4 and Ending Support for Universal Analytics?

This is a complex question – with some good answers that Google will give you and some answers you’ll need to read between the lines to get. Google’s official statement is that GA4 better reflects the modern web. UA did a woeful job reporting on non-webpage-based metrics, such as those from web apps. It was also cumbersome if your reporting needs didn’t precisely match those of a traditional website experience – e.g., single-page or non-linear web apps. GA4 is more customizable and reflects modern data collection and attribution processes better.

The underlying message here, though, is that of data privacy. Since UA launched nearly ten years ago, fundamental shifts have occurred over how people and the law treat data privacy on the web. Think of Edward Snowden, GDPR, and the countless data breaches over the last decade. At its core, Google realizes that this enormous cache of web data collected from millions of websites, even if not strictly Personally Identifiable Information (PII), is a huge security risk to the company. GA4 is an attempt to offset some of that risk, either removing entirely or at least offloading it to individual companies. GA4’s data collection methods are more anonymized, and data retention is limited to 14 months. Overall, this is a calculated move by Google to push its analytics customers to use tools that won’t put Google in hot water.

What’s similar between Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics? What’s different?

While the actual end-user experience may look starkly dissimilar, the foundation remains the same. GA4 will remain an incredibly flexible web analytics platform suitable for most websites today – regardless of whether it’s a personal blog, an online retailer, or a corporate website. Most day-to-day tasks like page view tracking, user attribution, and measuring bounce rates will remain the same. GA4 merely stores these metrics and measurements in alternative locations.

That isn’t to say everything is identical. The significant differences you’ll notice every day are rooted in the architectural shift in hit types. UA treated things like page views, events, and e-commerce tracking as separate entities or “hit types.” GA4, on the other hand, treats them all as “events”. Any tracking item will now be an event: resource downloads, page scroll, form submits. Google is thus simplifying the old event architecture by putting everything on the same level – everything is an event with associated customizable event parameters.

For example, under UA, a resource download event might have looked something like this:

  • Event Category: Downloads
    • Event Action: Resource Download
      • Event Label: resource_file_name.doc

Note that regardless of whether it was necessary, Events always took on this three-stage hierarchy. GA4 removes this rigid hierarchy. Instead of having the arbitrary “Event Action” and “Event Category” dimensions, GA4 lets one create as many custom event parameters as necessary to communicate an event’s nature fully. GA4 can track the event instead as:

  • Event: Download
    • Download Type: Resource
    • File Name: resource_file_name.doc

Sessions are also changing. By default, UA defined the end of a session by identifying 30 minutes of inactivity since the last event. GA4 measures the period between the first and last events in a session. GA4 also doesn’t create a new session when a user’s campaign parameters are changed. The major takeaway of these changes is that session numbers will likely be lower in GA4 than in UA.  

Aside from these two critical areas, there are many other minor changes. While lesser in scope, these changes may affect your reporting, depending on what kind of features you currently rely upon regularly. For example, customizable views for properties are going away in GA4. If you depend on different views, you’ll likely have to experiment with custom audience building to replicate the reporting. As mentioned before, GA4 will also only store data from the previous 14 months.

Documenting every change is beyond the scope of this blog post. If interested in getting into the nitty-gritty, read through Google’s documentation on the significant changes. 

Do I Need to Switch to Google Analytics 4?

Google states that no further data will be processed after July 1st, 2023 (Customers of 360 Universal Analytics get a small extension to October 1st, 2023). While Google may extend to a further date, make no mistake, Universal Analytics will eventually be completely deprecated. If your business relies on web analytics in any form, you need to start planning soon on what your migration plan looks like – hopefully well before July of next year.

How Can I Switch to Google Analytics 4?

For most websites, merely enabling dual tracking will be sufficient. Google has made an easy setup wizard for GA4. To access it, go to the admin panel for your UA property and click the “GA4 Setup Assistant” link. You can follow Google’s instructions here, but within a few clicks, you’ll have a tracking setup that collects both UA and GA4 data. You’ll already have nearly a year’s worth of GA4 data to review once UA goes offline next year. As noted previously, be aware that no historical data will be present in GA4, even if you use this wizard. That said, it will give an excellent basis of comparison to see the reporting differences, especially as you can compare each month between GA4 and UA up until the cutoff date.

Custom events and e-commerce will require a more personalized and custom approach. We’ll cover these in future guides here at Bluetext, but for now, you can consult Google’s guides on the matter here.

I hope this guide relieved some worries and cleared up some unknowns regarding Universal Analytics and GA4. There’s a lot to cover about GA4, and this guide only covers the surface. If you have any further questions about UA4 and GA4, be it migrating data, specific differences, or a transition plan, contact us to learn more about Bluetext’s analytics capabilities. 

When strategizing and creating the UX of a B2B website, making informed and data-driven decisions can make or break the impact of your site. Getting the user to your site is the first step, but once they have arrived, your content and user experience are the only things standing between a standalone visit and a conversion. 

Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the process of strategically enhancing your website to grow conversions. Depending on your business, this could mean a variety of different things. A conversion is defined as the completion of the desired goal, and we all know goals are never one size fits all. A goal could be a form completion, direct product purchase, a resource download, or event registration. For most B2B businesses, lead generation is the top goal. This means any action on your website in which a user demonstrates interest and provides their information is a conversion.  The importance of content and UX in terms of CRO cannot be overstated, and tools like A/B and multivariate testing can be leveraged to ensure all website elements are optimized for lead generation.

Types of Testing

A/B testing allows you to test the impact of one specific variable (for example, CTA button placement, CTA copy, page heading copy) to determine the most effective version of the page content and user experience. It analyzes user action on the variable page (version B) against the control page (version A) and ideally results in statistically significant insights. 

Multivariate testing, on the other hand, tests multiple pages and content variables against the control page. While A/B testing gives insight into the effect of variables on an individual basis, multivariate testing reveals the collective impact of those variables and how they work together in one page design against another.

Multi-page funnel testing is similar to the aforementioned test types, however rather than testing variables on multiple versions of just one page, multi-page testing evaluates the impact of variables across the full user journey. This is helpful information, specifically when it comes to lead generation. Finding the ideal user experience and user journey across multiple pages and having the ability to analyze user actions from top of funnel activity to conversion allows you to make the most informed and well-strategized decisions when it comes to page content. If increased conversion rates are your goal, you want to be able to set yourself up for success with a data-supported UX.

How to Conduct A/B and Multivariate Testing

It is highly recommended that you use a CRO tool (Google Optimize, for example) to conduct user testing to avoid any SEO issues that may be caused by just creating multiple pages with specified variables in your CMS and evaluating the results in Google Analytics. Using the right tool will not only help to ensure you don’t negatively impact SEO but will also allow you to differentiate results and insights that are statistically significant from those that occur by chance. 

Our Tips for Split Test Execution:

  • Determine the specific question you want the test to answer and form a hypothesis – An example of that question may be: Why are users not clicking the CTA on our product page? Your subsequent hypothesis will inform the type of testing you should conduct as well as the variables you should examine. 
  • Form a hypothesis – If your hypothesis to that question is “Users are not clicking the CTA because it does not visually stand out on the page.” The variable you could then analyze via an A/B test is making that CTA button a bolder, more eye-catching color on-page version B.
  • Make sure you are using the right tools – accuracy and reliability are crucial when venturing into user testing. Setting up your test to yield clear and statistically significant results is the first and most important step in testing and CRO. Without establishing that foundation, you can end up with data that doesn’t tell you anything about user patterns but rather just a collection of events that occur by chance.

Consulting a B2B marketing analytics and intelligence company like Bluetext to guide you through strategizing and testing the many variables that come with creating a website. Reach out to learn how Bluetext can support your organization. 

A compelling website is the backbone of a brand’s digital presence. A website serves as a channel for business by generating purchases, tracking sales leads, and raising brand awareness. The visual appearance of your website must promote the corporate visual identity and enhance the site’s functionality. Some basic design guidelines can be applied to ensure that the site is both aesthetically appealing and easy to navigate for users. The following 8 principles should be kept in mind when designing user-friendly, effective websites that direct users to the desired outcomes:

Create a Visual Hierarchy

Visitors to a site will skim content to find the information most relevant to them. The visual hierarchy created by typography styling and placement is key to directing their attention to the most crucial information on the site. Using a consistent hierarchy H1, H2, H3, etc. header style aids end-users, but also SEO engines. Google crawlers will look to these assigned hierarchies to identify organic search keywords and prioritize your website higher on search engine results (SERP) so a user can find your website in the first place. Each page should highlight the most important content and de-prioritize supporting information so that a user can more easily pick up on the big takeaways. Bluetext works with clients to identify the key actions or information that a site should showcase, and creates thoughtful designs to make those items stand out to users.

Use the Golden Ratio

The Golden ratio uses the number 1.618 to divide portions of the screen into sections that are visually appealing to users. Rather than dividing areas into equally measured sizes, the width or height of a section should be divided by 1.618 in order to create one larger section, and the remaining area is left in a smaller section. This proportion is easier for users to analyze, as it has a more classical and balanced appearance.

Avoid Possibility Paralysis

Giving users too many possibilities to choose from creates frustration and hesitancy in user actions. Think about the classic supermarket example. The decision between three types of peanut butter is far easier and faster than deciding between fifteen different types and brands. Discerning between choices and identifying the correct one requires a lot of energy from users when they’re bombarded with options. Limiting the choices presented to users eliminates distracting elements, and allows them to interact with the site more seamlessly. 

Bigger Is (Often) Better

Larger items are simply easier for a user to find and click. For call-to-action (CTA) buttons, in particular, making those buttons larger will lead users to click those areas quicker and more often. Unusually large buttons might have the unintended effect of distracting or confusing the reader, but legible, noticeable designs can positively encourage user interaction. For other tips and tricks to designing CTAs, read our blog on the Guide to the Perfect CTA Button. 

Consider Gestalt Principles

A website that exhibits well-executed design will help attract users’ attention before they dive into more detailed content. Overall design principles provided by Gestalt help creators build websites that visually appeal to users. For example, Gestalt’s law of closure ensures that users prefer designs that feel complete, rather than having gaps or empty spaces that break up the flow of the design. Considering users’ design preferences will help the audience feel more connected and engaged with the site. Poor designs could confuse users or distract them from important content. 

Utilize Negative Space

Negative space is the open space created in a design where there is a lack of content. This clear area creates a natural breathing room and is essential to making the design appear clean and modern. A page that is cluttered with information can be overwhelming to users, and this can discourage them from exploring the content. A great example of maximizing whitespace for a clean website design is Bluetext’s work with Sonicwall, an innovative cyber-security company. 

Acknowledge the F-pattern Rule

Eye-tracking studies have shown that users tend to scan screens in an F-shaped pattern, following from left to right across the top of the page, then just scanning down the left side of the page as they scroll lower. The F-pattern reinforces the idea that the most important text or imagery should be placed at the top of the page, or along the left margin. Placing crucial content in these areas will increase the likelihood of users noticing or absorbing this content. 

Consistency is Key

Keeping consistency across design elements is crucial to creating visual cohesiveness across a site. Typography styling and content blocks should be recognizable across different pages. When designing websites, Bluetext developers help clients to create a dynamic component system, where the same components can be modified or rearranged on different pages throughout the site. This component system establishes regularity throughout designs that help users navigate the site more easily, recognizing familiar component structures. 

Investing in your website’s design can drastically improve the user experience and lead to desired business outcomes, such as increased sales, lead generation, or overall awareness of your brand. Need help? Contact Bluetext to get expert support in perfecting your user experience design through thoughtful web design.

No matter what industry your company is in, or who your target market is, the goal of any customer interaction is to foster a relationship that converts to revenue. In today’s digital landscape, customers’ expectations have elevated to instant yet personalized feedback to their questions at the click of a button. While this seems like an impossibly daunting task, it has become an expected digital experience with the help of technology. Artificial intelligence-powered live chat, chatbots, and messaging apps have all helped companies achieve this blend of efficiency and customization. Below, we dive deep into the power of conversational marketing and how to implement the right strategy for your business. 

What is Conversational Marketing? 

In its essence, conversational marketing is a series of one-to-one interactions in real-time across multiple channels. Conversational marketing enables you and your team to foster relationships with both potential customers and existing customers, improving overall online customer experience and brand perception. A successful conversational marketing strategy ensures your customers feel satisfied and supported in all their questions, and trust your brand throughout every stage of the sales funnel.  Additionally, as we know, data is a powerful tool, and utilizing conversational marketing technology can increase that amount of data allowing you to tweak your strategy and increase conversions. Every conversation could be considered a mini focus study and learning experience for how to continually improve your business.

Chatbots

As your business scales up, so will the number of questions from prospective and existing customers. That being said, there will come a time when it is simply not feasible to increase the number of sales representatives you have to answer every question that comes in via your website. That’s where chatbots come in. Chatbots have become the go-to conversational marketing tool for a lot of businesses. Platforms like Drift, which integrate seamlessly with your existing website make chatbots a very easy and effective way to up your conversational marketing efforts. Chatbots are very effective when it comes to easing customer pain points quickly and provides a visual cue of reassurance upon landing on a web page that support resources are readily available. Pre-programmed answers to frequently answered questions allow you to talk to your customers, regardless of the time of day. This is especially beneficial for businesses with an international reach, as customers outside your local time zone will always feel supported. If the query is too unique to respond with a canned response, chatbots can connect the customer with a live representative who can better answer their questions. Plenty of conversational marketing platforms enable businesses to identify which leads are most likely to buy and then move them to the front of the line.

Customer Feedback

Pulling data from your chosen conversational marketing tool on customer engagement will only get you so far. At the end of the day, you’ll need to gather feedback from your customers, asking them their thoughts on how to improve the customer and prospect experience on your site. This will not just enable the customer to feel that they have a say but also will help in the optimization of the tools after some time. Adding a quick feedback survey to the end of a chatbot or live chat conversation will go a long way in improving customer satisfaction. 

How to Get Started

Implementing a successful conversational marketing strategy starts by choosing the web pages where you want your conversational bot to engage with your visitors. Sometimes it makes sense to have a constant chatbot available on every page, at all times. Other times, and especially when utilizing live chat versus a chatbot, it pays off to choose the pages that get the most traffic, have the most conversion opportunities, or have visitors with a high intention of buying. This will help maximize the number of interactions you enter into, and the likelihood of success of those interactions. Now that you’ve decided where you want to speak to your customers on your website, it’s time to define what kind of information customers will ask for, and how in the simplest terms you can provide them with that information. As a general rule of thumb, try to keep the conversations simple. Your customers will expect the interaction with your company to be smooth and want to get answers and guidance quickly.

Regardless of the size of your company, having a conversational marketing strategy is key to increasing customer satisfaction and therefore revenue. Are you looking to begin your conversational marketing strategy but not quite sure where to start? Contact Bluetext and see how we can help.

Being a technology company can be tough, there is often pressure to appear futuristic, scientific, or impressively complex. The market often expects the latest and greatest features and widgets, especially in website UX and design. However, not every company is the space-age, robotics, AI-generated stereotype that comes to mind with “tech”. But across all technology companies, there is a shared level of expertise in software and computing that may not be found in the everyday website viewer. Technology companies can easily fall into the trap of flexing their brain power a little too strongly, and overachieving the “tech aesthetic”. And while there are a million ways to design an impressive website, there are a couple of practices that stand out as common pitfalls for technology companies. Bluetext recommends the following as what NOT to do in web design: 

Too much content on one page

This is often the result of poor content planning. When a user is overwhelmed with animations, visuals, and walls of text, they lose interest quickly. Focus each page on answering a specific question or describing a specific product, and link out to additional information that you feel is relevant. If there is any “take it or leave it” language on the page, it might be best to leave it.

Too little content on one page

As the saying goes, too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. We appreciate minimal site design when it helps a user find exactly what they’re looking for, but barely-there content doesn’t help anyone. Each page should be thoughtfully designed and written and should provide a user with clear next steps in their journey on your website.

Jargon or unapproachable language

Messaging across the site ought to be crystal clear. Just like having too much content, using complicated language and jargon can deter a user from continuing on your site. We recommend tailoring your content to your audience by considering how they would speak during a conference—widely-understood industry terms are acceptable, but should be embedded within digestible, humanized language. When customers can easily understand your product language, they gain confidence in your brand. 

Recently, Bluetext partnered with BigBear.ai to develop a new messaging strategy that frames them as a leader in their field while explaining their highly-technical product with accessible language. As a result of this partnership, BigBear.ai is able to strike a balance between technical and approachable language, and build trust with its audience. To learn more about this project, click here.

Falling into the trap of trends

We see this most often when personal taste takes precedence over user experience. Some trends have staying power and can help you stand out from out-of-the-box websites. Some trends, though, are fleeting. 

When adopting new web design styles, carefully consider the relevance of each trend to your brand and your users. More often than not, the best thing you can do for your users is to be consistent. They want to know what to expect from your website, so as you explore trends, it’s good to meet (or exceed!) those expectations.

No clear CTA

Each page on your site should provide clear, relevant next steps. This could take the form of related resources at the bottom of the page or quick links to associated product pages. Whichever next steps you choose to display, they should proactively provide the user with additional information related to the page they’re on. This practice is also helpful with interlinking content across your website, which can boost your search rankings.

For a great example of CTA placement throughout a site, check out Axient’s website. Bluetext worked with Axient to devise a comprehensive website strategy that would optimize the user journey and maximize conversions. To read more about this project, click here.

Poor mobile experience

More than half of users will leave a page that takes more than a few seconds to load on mobile, according to Google. Given that mobile use is steadily increasing year-over-year, this means that the longer your site takes to load, the more users you could be losing to competitors. 

One solution for the mobile-desktop conundrum, as recommended by Nielsen, is to have a mobile site separate from your desktop site. This will allow you to pare the mobile experience down by removing content and features that are only relevant to desktop users. To see how your site’s mobile experience stacks up, try out Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. 

At the end of the day, the best thing you can do for your website is to design and write with your end-user in mind. A site that works for them is a site that works for you.

To learn how Bluetext can help you avoid these mistakes, get in touch with our web design experts today.

Whenever you add or change a feature on your website, you should consider the impact on the UX, or user experience. When you assess how users will interact with your website, it is important to consider users with differing abilities. Accessibility is a critical component of website design, not only for inclusivity but also because Google search crawlers reward websites that implement accessibility best practices. 

Most websites don’t even realize that their content is not accessible to all users and use designs and visuals that create poor accessibility unintentionally. For example, you might like the relaxing feel of muted colors, but there needs to be enough contrast for users with visual impairments to read your content. If you use video content, be sure to include closed captioning to provide users who are deaf and hard of hearing the same access to information. 

When thinking about accessibility, it’s also important to remember the universal benefit to every single user of your website. Too often, we think of accessibility as a way to benefit a small subset of users who need accommodations, but making your content more accessible actually helps everyone. If you’ve ever tried to watch a video on the metro, you know the benefit of closed captioning. On that day your mouse broke, you probably learned pretty quickly which websites you could access using a keyboard.

While there are many different ways you can improve accessibility, here are some great ways to start bettering your site.

Check Color Contrast

Run your website through a contrast checking tool (there are many free options online, such as a11y’s color contrast tool). This will help you spot any colors that might be difficult to read or view, so you can update text and CTAs to ensure that all your users interact more easily with your site.

Break Up Long Chunks of Text

While some areas of your site might require a long article when possible try to break up long periods of text with images or different types of components. This will make your content more accessible for neurodiverse users, and it will make important content more digestible for anyone who comes to your website.

Add Alternative Text for Images

Many content management systems will already ask you for alternate text for images, so this is an easy way to immediately make your website more accessible. This text does not need to be a detailed description of every single piece of the image but should be a few descriptive words that capture the main points of the image.

Make Menu Items Unique

Repeated menu items are confusing for everyone. If you have the same item under two different parts of the menu, it is difficult for users to tell which one has the information they need. It becomes more difficult to tell the difference when using a screen reader. Think through your menu, and choose the single most accurate spot for each menu item.

Improve Heading Hierarchy

Headings help you visually separate your content, and using the correct headings will help neurodiverse users and people using screen readers. Most websites use headings from <h1>, being the most visually impactful and important, to <h6>, being the least. As you write your content, think about where it makes sense to group content under a heading and what type of heading should be used. A major section of your page should not be delineated by <h6>, and a short paragraph should not use an <h1>. 

Hopefully, these recommendations will help you as you begin creating a more accessible website. Reach out to Bluetext to dive further into accessibility and make sure every user has a great experience on your website.

Whether you’re a reader or a listener, we’ve got you covered! Listen to the podcast version of this post for a fresh take.

In any website design, call-to-action (CTA) buttons are key to highlighting the important actions available to users. Buttons make the difference between a general site visitor and a converting sales lead. Pointing out relevant information and next steps to the user can help them navigate your site with less friction, reducing decision fatigue and decreasing bounce rates. Here are six key questions you should consider when designing the CTA buttons to be used on your website.

Should the button style stay the same?

While it’s important for button styling to be consistent across a site, in some cases, there are multiple actions available to a user in a single viewport. To avoid overwhelming users with numerous identical buttons on the screen, you can use different styles to indicate a visual hierarchy. You’re already asking a user to make one decision, therefore, the UX should eliminate any additional, unnecessary decisions in what button to select. For actions that are top priority, bold-colored, solid buttons tend to draw a user’s attention first. Secondary and tertiary button styles should be less emphasized, with unfilled boxes or simply underlined text to indicate less important actions. The styles should be distinct but linked by common elements such as color or shape to make them easily recognizable. Try to use the primary button styling predominantly throughout the site, and avoid creating more than three distinct button styles. 

What colors are best to use for CTA buttons? 

When choosing the fill color of CTA buttons, it may be tempting to rely on your company brand color scheme. The button design shouldn’t diverge from the brand entirely, but the button color should stand out from the rest of the content on your site. Say you have a minimalistic black and white or muted color palette, you’d want your colors to pop against those backgrounds. Using the predominant brand color risks the button competing for user attention, leading to lower clickthrough rates. Color psychology also plays a key role in communicating the meaning behind buttons. It’s usually best to avoid red CTA buttons, because red buttons are associated with dangerous or harmful actions. Blue buttons, on the other hand, have positive connotations for users since blue text (the namesake of the Bluetext agency) has been used to indicate hyperlinks since the inception of the internet. Users are familiar and comfortable with clicking clue hyperlinked text, so why initiate a change? When choosing the color for a group of buttons on the site, assigning different colors to each action can create a higher cognitive load for users trying to distinguish between their choices. It’s best to use the same color for all the buttons in a group, so that users can focus on the text. However, you may want to consider indicating a default action to make one choice stand out, as discussed in the next section. 

Should you highlight a default action? 

If you are showing choices on a screen, and one of the choices presented is more likely to be the user’s preferred action, then it may be best to highlight that option to indicate it as the  “default” to help users choose this option faster. However, if the choices are equal, then highlighting a default action could confuse the user or steer them to click the default choice rather than considering the options equally. When showing two choices next to each other, it’s also important to consider right and left hand placement. Showing an option on the right may make users more likely to choose it due to right hand bias, so it’s best to put the default option on the right. However, if the default action is something irreversible like “delete all,” it may be best to put that CTA on the left to force users to give more consideration to their decision. When presenting multiple options, just consider which option will be chosen the most often, and how quickly you want the user to navigate the decision. 

Should icons be added to the CTA buttons? 

Usually, text alone is enough to communicate clear actions to the user, but when buttons are grouped together, it may be harder for the user to distinguish the difference between the options presented. For example, if a new user on your site sees “Download” and “Contact Us” CTAs right next to each other, they might have to take a second to think about the difference between the two actions. In cases like this, icons can help users to discern the difference between the options faster. When assigning icons to the CTAs, make sure that the icon is helpful in communicating the meaning behind the text. If the icons themselves are too similar or generic, they may only lead to more user indecisiveness. Choosing the right icons can make all the difference in the user experience.

Should designers think “outside-the-box”?

The standard button styling is a rectangular box shape, with rounded corners. While designers could use colors and text styling to flex the brand, the overall button shape shouldn’t stray too far from the norm. The oblong-shaped CTA is emerging in popularity with more rounded, organic brands and is a great example of applying brand elements without feeling foreign. The goal of a CTA is to be instantly recognizable to the user, and in this case, thinking outside the box could lead to users being confused or less likely to interact with CTAs. One way of ensuring standardization across buttons is by adhering to the “common grid” measurements. The grid spacing ensures that buttons have adequate clear space around the text, making them easier for viewers to read and recognize the anatomy. Clean, simple designs also tend to be more palatable, as buttons with numerous effects applied can end up looking tacky and unprofessional. 

What considerations should be in place for accessibility? 

Accessibility is necessary for legal compliance, but it’s also recommended to ensure that designs are easy to read for all users. Font size and color contrast are two of the main considerations for button accessibility. Gradient treatments can also add complications to website accessibility, especially when overlaid with text. As a designer, it’s important to ensure that legibility is never sacrificed for aesthetics. The Importance of Website Accessibility doesn’t go ignored at Bluetext; read more about how we test for accessibility compliance to ensure that our sites are functional for everyone. 

At Bluetext, when designing a site for a client, the number one priority is to ensure that the website will engage users in order to achieve business goals. Experienced designers know that CTA styling is key to capturing users and directing them to the most important content on the site. Thoughtful design can increase brand recognition, improve clickthrough rates, and remedy bounce rates for your site. Contact Bluetext to learn more about our services and how we can address all of your website design needs.

A crucial part of any successful website design is not only catching the attention of a target market but keeping that attention. Oftentimes, UX experts will achieve attention retention through eye-catching animations, clean layouts, and intentional content strategy. But in some industries where flashy design and lifestyle imagery isn’t relevant, this can be an intimidating challenge. As a B2B technology marketing agency, Bluetext has done a deep dive into some key elements to help give your B2B website the winning edge. 

The Difference Between B2B and B2C Websites

When it comes to designing a website for a B2B versus a B2C audience, the design landscape and tone change in response to respective target audiences. Consumers are often online to fulfill an emotional need, such as instant satisfaction from a purchase. The B2B audience, however, tends to take more time examining all the information about the product before making a decision. Why is this important? Understanding the audience’s motivations is the first step to giving your B2B tech website a leg up in UX design. 

Now that we have covered audience motivation, let’s discuss how this translates into web design. In a broad sense, UX experts recommend the key aspects of technology website should be: simple navigation, concise language, and responsive web design. In the market of technology, it is also important to emphasize successful security checks throughout the design of the site. Those are the core ingredients one would expect every website to contain, but below we explore three best practices to help B2B websites stand out against the pack.

Rely on Content 

UX experts first and foremost rely on content. As we mentioned earlier, B2B audiences often have much higher stakes in their purchasing decision. Yes, it may be a sole individual making the decision but they are often selecting a product or solution that will impact many people and departments across their company. Therefore, the B2B target audience likes to know everything about the product before making their long-term purchase decision. A tech website design must accommodate large amounts of text to describe each product. Keeping this in mind, UX designers can implement specific modules for a site that best present large amounts of content in digestible chunks. 

B2B tech websites’ extensive amount of content must also convey a professional tone. Most B2B site visitors are informed to some extent about the product or solution they are seeking. If a company cannot clearly explain its product in a professional and concise way, it will drive away sales. There is nothing more professionally relatable than a crunch for time, so a site should respect the user’s busy schedule and likely short-lived attention span for acquiring key details. Another common mistake for tech companies is not clearly explaining company messaging and why they stand out against their competitors at the forefront of their website. Upon first landing, a user should be able to tell what your company does, and why they should pay attention to it. The Bluetext messaging team uses a highly thought out process to make sure the tone of a brand addresses all competitors in the marketplace and stakeholders within a company.

Clear Call-to-Action 

In the same vein of time awareness, B2B web designs must have a clear call to action. If you happen to capture a user’s attention enough to generate genuine interest, there needs to be a frictionless and obvious way for them to find and take the next step. Research has shown that a B2B audience is more likely to call to purchase a product than purchase online. Therefore, a website should address this pain point with live chat solutions, well-integrated contact forms, customer care information, telephone numbers, and more. 

 

High-quality video and images

Along with the expectation of a professional tone comes a professional look. The first step is implementing high-quality videos and images onto the new site. Strong visual content can help break up the large blocks of content and avoid the risk of eye fatigue when scanning and reading lengthy text blocks. Videos are a useful and engaging way to provide a clear explanation of what the product can achieve. Coupling visual and audio elements increase the memorability of your brand and capture attention for much longer. Videos can also give a closer look at the company’s values as a whole. The Bluetext video team uses a strong brand voice, innovative animations, and professional editing to create persuasive and informative content for their clients.

Mobile Friendly 

If you’re selling tech, you have to show you are tech-savvy and keeping up with the times. This should be a no-brainer, but too many technology websites across the web don’t take advantage of responsive design practices to ensure equitable desktop and mobile experiences. Bluetext implements this with well-thought-out wireframes addressing all content needs. One of the ways to best implement a strong user experience is keeping in mind the significance of a mobile-friendly design. With mobile traffic driving up to 40% of revenue, this design compatibility should never be ignored. 

B2B differs from B2C in terms of their audience needs, wants, and decision-making processes. While some core differences set these types of websites apart, an informed UX and content strategy that matches audience needs is crucial to both. Consult a website design and UX agency like Bluetext so you can be sure that your website addresses the needs of your target audience, and formats content and visual components to convey a professional and interesting tone. Contact Bluetext to learn more about our services and how we can address all of your content and website design needs. 

You don’t want your users to get an error page, but if they do, make sure it is a good one.

If someone finds a 404 page on your website, they are probably in the wrong place; your goal should be to make it as easy (and fun) as possible for them to find the right page. You need to make sure that your visitor can find a way back to their intended location, so it’s helpful to direct them to popular pages or a search feature. By giving your user some direction, you can make lost pages feel more like a detour than a dead end on your website.

While your primary focus should be to help your users find a new page to travel to, there is also a trend toward having more interesting and fun 404 pages. You want to keep any error pages within the realm of the company brand, but you should also see it as a chance to add some humor or engagement to your website. By infusing some witty text or a cool graphic into your 404 page, you help website visitors have a good experience on your site even when they face an error code. After all, the happier your website visitors are, the more likely they are to continue exploring the website, rather than exit out altogether.

Take Amazon for example, when a page is lost users are shown a cute dog with redirection back home. Even better is that the dog photo changes each and every time to feature one of their 43 “Dogs of Amazon”. 

Ceros has a great example of a fun and helpful 404 page. The company recently updated its 404 page to have an interactive wheel that leads users to random content. By encouraging interactivity as Ceros does, you can keep your users interested in your content even when they’ve lost what they are looking for. Engaging features like this motivate visitors to look beyond their original search and consider other areas of your website.

The new BigBear website, which Bluetext worked on, is another example of an excellent error page. On their 404 page, you can see a picture of a lost bear. This adds a little humor to the page while keeping the content on-brand for the company. The 404 page does not end there, though. It also has quick links to encourage visitors to continue interacting with the website. 

Both of these examples illustrate the usefulness of having an informative but fun 404 page since the ultimate goal of any website is to keep visitors engaged! While a 404 error is never the ideal landing page for your website users, it is critical to prepare and design for this scenario. And by turning what was traditionally a dead-end into an interesting detour with clear next steps, you increase the chances of a positive user experience on your website. 

If you need help setting up a new 404 page, reach out to our experts at Bluetext.

2 years ago SonicWall approached Bluetext with a campaign challenge: “Help us infuse originality within an over-saturated cybersecurity market. Portray Boundless Cybersecurity ability to break free of cyber threats.” 

Bluetext’s response? Hours upon hours huddled over brainstorming sessions until the winning idea came to light. Portraying the end-users in a surrealist, anti-gravity state in which they quite literally “break free” from the constraints and anxieties of impending threats. But how could this be done? With a troupe of ballet dancers, a giant trampoline, and an imaginative team of creative & strategic minds the first Boundless photoshoot was made possible.

By knowing the unknown, providing real-time visibility, and enabling breakthrough economics, SonicWall protects against boundless exposure points for increasingly remote, mobile, and cloud-enabled workforces. In order to communicate SonicWall’s business values across a variety of businesses, Bluetext prescribed a verticalized approach to target the unique needs of each industry. Every detail, from costume to backdrop, was personalized to resonate with distinct audience personas.  To truly stand out and earn attention in a crowded cybersecurity arena, the campaign centered on fantastical floating imagery, which served to visualize an anti-gravity feeling of breaking free of cyber threats. To achieve this vision, action photography of models jumping and free-falling atop a giant trampoline was captured. With custom photoshoots, expert post-production editing, and head-turning taglines Bluetext truly elevated the campaign to new heights. As a collection, the campaign imagery showcased SonicWall’s wide range of customer success, and as individual targeted campaign assets, the images emphasized SonicWall’s application to industry-specific use cases. New website pages, banner ads, and social graphics were developed to reinforce  ”When Cyber Threats Are Limitless, Your Defenses Must Be Boundless.”

The campaign was a roaring success. So much so that it inspired a Boundless 2.0 campaign that elevated key art imagery to 3D video production to tell the evolving Boundless story. This time, the campaign focused on the end user’s journey into a surrealist, anti-gravity state of mind. The campaign video spans a variety of industry applications, from higher education libraries to retail shops, but focuses on the perspectives of an SMB and remote employee. The narrative describes the current state of cybersecurity, being a sense of closed-off isolation to avoid the fear of cyber threats, but begs the question of ‘what if?’ The main characters are shown proceeding through their daily responsibilities (whether that be commuting into the office, or multi-tasking child care responsibilities at home) until interacting with SonicWall products on their given devices. As these users connect to SonicWall they experience the unconventional possibilities of cybersecurity; ‘What if cybersecurity felt…free?’ The characters are transitioned to a surrealist Boundless world, in which 3D video effects bring a state of gravity-free liberation from constraints of the past. The characters “break free” to realize a more secure, yet freer, future with SonicWall. 

To further compliment the Boundless 2.0 campaign video, Bluetext brought the story to life on the SonicWall website homepage and campaign landing page. Both of which feature 3D video in the hero zone to showcase Boundless Cybersecurity for both the remote and in-office workforce. Bluetext animators built a custom 3D environment for each character, which is showcased through 360 pan-around camera effects. Attention to detail was everything, from the outfits worn by the character to the interior decor with hints of the SonicWall brand elements. The characters themselves even parallax for hyper-realistic body motion. The rest of the pages were designed by the Bluetext website & UX designers to highlight the campaign’s core messaging, featuring new products and industry-related use cases. 

In an impressive feat of animation, website design, videography, and most of all creative brainpower, Bluetext accomplished its challenge. The Bluetext and SonicWall team combined forces to bring new energy and direction to the SonicWall Boundless Cybersecurity campaign. In two years the campaign has evolved to new heights, but just like SonicWall security, the potential is boundless. Stay tuned to see how the campaign further evolves in 2022, and contact us to see how we can develop a state-of-the-art campaign for you.