Why Some B2B Websites Create More Work for Buyers (Is Yours One of Them?)
Buyers are already overloaded. Clear and benefits-driven language helps them choose you.
My first job out of graduate school was at a historic house outside Philadelphia.
The Highlands is a big brick Colonial mansion with a long dirt drive that makes it easy to picture horse-drawn carriages rumbling toward the front door. The grassy surroundings once had a smattering of animals to help support the family.
And one of the women who lived there in the late 1800s kept diaries. Every entry started with the weather.
“Snow again.”
“Rainy and cold.”
“Stayed inside again today due to blizzard.”
The weather shaped their lives.
A visit to friends 5 or 8 miles away could take most of the day over snowy roads in a horse-drawn carriage. You might stay a few days because it was not a quick or comfortable ride.
Long winters meant eating down the provisions you’d prepared back in the fall. Perserves, root vegetables, cured meats from the smokehouse. Even the well-off had repetitive diets, especially by late February.
The diary entries provided context for a couple of spinster sisters living an isolated life in the 1870s.
Context is everything.
I think about this a lot when I look at B2B websites.
Some websites sound like the C-suite got hold of the copy and refused to let go. (You know the ones.)
The abstract language.
The jargon.
The phrases that sound important without helping the buyer picture how it helps them.
“Our audience is intelligent. They’ll understand.”
And they are intelligent.
That’s not the issue.
Buyers are overloaded
They’re reading reviews, forwarding links internally, checking Reddit threads, comparing vendors, and trying to predict whether this purchase will create new problems six months from now.
And that’s all before they talk to a salesperson or schedule a demo.
They’re asking themselves questions like:
Will implementation be smooth or eat up half the team’s bandwidth?
Will the software integrate with existing systems?
Will leadership still support the decision after the excitement wears off?
Will employees actually use the thing?
Will the promised efficiency gains materialize in real life?
That’s why vague messaging creates so much hidden friction.
There’s Too Much Meaningless Information (and not enought meaning)
We’ve all seen the language.
seamless connections
end-to-end solutions
purpose-built
AI-powered workflows
The meaningless phrases on soooo many websites these days that leave prospects wondering, what does this company do?
Abstract language requires the reader to translate what the company does.
Before: “We provide end-to-end revenue optimization solutions for hospitality operators.”
After: “Our revenue management software helps hotel revenue teams adjust room pricing faster, spot demand shifts earlier, and reduce hours spent pulling reports manually.”
More concrete. The prospect can grasp the benefits even in a 5 second scan between meetings. It gives them something to remember.
Buyers immediately grasp:
what you do
why it matters
and why it’s different
A 2024 study from Sales Benchmark Index found that 74% of B2B buyers felt overwhelmed by the number of options and decision paths involved in a major purchase decision.
Your website messaging is competing for limited mental bandwidth.
The other day, I read about a marketer who spent hours interviewing customers, listening to sales calls, and combing through Reddit threads to write a homepage.
One of the executives copied the headline into ChatGPT to “test” it.
Which honestly says a lot about how many companies misunderstand messaging work in the first place.
Good messaging isn’t decoration.
It’s interpretation for the buyer.
Context is becoming more valuable
And in a world where AI can generate infinite amounts of information, interpretation becomes even more valuable.
Everyone is drowning in information. That’s why context is everything.
The best museums understand this.
They don’t throw facts at visitors and hope meaning magically appears.
They provide orientation to help people connect the pieces.
The best B2B marketing does the same thing.
It reduces uncertainty and helps buyers understand the benefits of choosing you. Because the next question is “Do we trust this company enough to bet part of our business on them?”
