Websites that bring work in.
What a B2B website has to do to turn buyers and AI assistants into enquiries, how to judge what it should cost, and when to rebuild or keep improving.
Every founder has heard some version of "the website is not really where our work comes from". Usually that is because the site is not doing its job. A buyer who has heard your name from a colleague or an AI assistant will go and look. If the page is slow on their phone, opens with a slogan instead of a plain statement of what you do, and hides the people and the proof three clicks deep, they close it and move on to the next name on the list.
These guides treat the website as sales infrastructure, with a cost, a return and an owner. The commercial questions come first: whether it is working, what it should include, what it should cost and whether to rebuild. The technical ones follow: speed, accessibility, structure, mobile, your choice of platform and what an AI assistant needs to read a page accurately.
That last point catches many firms out. The main AI crawlers, GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot, fetch pages but do not run JavaScript, so text that only appears once scripts run is invisible to them (Vercel and MERJ, December 2024). Googlebot does render JavaScript, which helps Gemini and Google's AI features, but your key facts belong in the page's HTML either way.
If you are not sure the website is the problem, start with how to know whether your website is working: a short set of checks you can run this afternoon with the analytics you already have. What should a B2B website include sets out the pages buyers and assistants expect to find, from one page per service and sector to an honest page on price and process.
The question we are asked most is whether to start again. Redesign or keep improving explains when a rebuild is right, which is when the platform, structure or positioning is wrong, and why steady monthly improvement suits most firms the rest of the time. Template or custom website is a neutral comparison: a template is enough for many new or small firms, and the guide shows the point at which a firm that competes on expertise tends to outgrow one.
Other guides cover what a website costs over three years rather than just the build, what leaving a site unchanged costs you, how to measure its return, what makes a buyer trust a page, speed and accessibility, mobile, site structure, platform choice and a technical checklist for AI search. Guides on publishing prices, comparison pages, keeping rankings through a redesign and sites built with AI website builders are being added over the coming weeks.
If you would like us to build or run your site, Website That Sells explains how we work, and our prices are on What it costs.
Last reviewed 24 September 2026. Rewritten for 2026: removed every Fortitude price and the guide count, added the neutral template guide, the website contents guide and the JavaScript crawler finding.
Will a website redesign lose our Google rankings? What we learned moving 310 pages
A redesign only costs rankings when addresses break, useful pages vanish or crawlers are shut out. This is the page-by-page method we use to move a site, from the first crawl to the twelve-week check.
Read the guideAll 15 guides in this topic
Should a B2B firm publish its prices?
Usually yes, as ranges or starting points. Buyers and the AI assistants they use rank suppliers before calling anyone, and "contact us for pricing" gives them nothing to compare.
Does our website's speed and accessibility really affect enquiries?
Speed and accessibility sound like jobs for the developer. They are also why some buyers leave before reading a word, and why some pages are harder for Google and AI assistants to use.
How much does a B2B website cost in the UK?
The agency quote covers the build. It rarely covers hosting, security, content, updates, your own team's time, or the redesign that follows when none of that happens. Here is how to cost it properly.
What should a B2B website include?
A website used to be a brochure with a contact form. Now AI assistants read it before deciding whether to name you, and buyers check it before deciding whether to call.
Do our B2B buyers really look at our website on their phones?
Most B2B websites are designed on a large monitor and checked on a phone as an afterthought. Buyers often do it the other way round, and the gap costs you enquiries you never see.
Does our website platform affect whether ChatGPT can read our site?
Your developer wants to move platforms, or your agency swears by one. Here is what the platform really changes about whether ChatGPT and Gemini can read and recommend your firm.
How do I know whether our website is actually working?
A traffic report does not tell you whether your website brings in work. Here is a seven-step check you can run in an afternoon, and a six-question score to repeat every quarter.
How do we measure the return we get from our website?
Your finance director wants a number, and traffic reports will not do. Here is a method that counts the enquiries and deals your website helps win, using your own figures.
How should we organise our website so buyers and AI understand it?
The way your website is organised decides whether a buyer finds their situation in two clicks, and whether AI assistants can match your pages to the questions buyers ask.
Is our website technically ready for ChatGPT and AI search?
Most B2B websites were built for Google and a human reader. AI assistants fetch and read them differently. This checklist covers what your developer should check and how to test each item.
Should we redesign our website or keep improving the one we have?
A full rebuild every few years feels decisive, but the site drifts out of date in between. How monthly improvement compares, when a redesign is right, and how to rebuild without losing rankings.
Template or custom website: which does a B2B firm need?
Templates are quick, cheap and often the right start. Here is how they compare with an adapted theme and a custom build, and the signs a growing B2B firm has outgrown one.
What does it cost us to leave our website unchanged for years?
An outdated website looks cheap on the invoice. Its real costs are enquiries that never arrive, pitches lost to fresher rivals, longer sales calls and AI answers that describe the firm you used to be.
What makes a buyer trust our website enough to get in touch?
Buyers decide whether to trust you from small signals on your website, long before they speak to you. Which signals matter most in B2B, from named proof and prices to guarantees and your contact page.
Common questions.
How do I know if our website is the problem?
Check three things. Count last quarter's enquiries that came through the site, read the site on a phone as a buyer would, and ask a stranger to say what you do and for whom after ten seconds on the homepage. Then test your contact form. If any of those fails, the site is losing you work.
Should we rebuild or keep improving what we have?
Keep improving, unless the platform, the structure or the positioning is wrong. A rebuild on a fixed cycle leaves the site out of date for much of the time and puts your search history at risk when page addresses change. If you do rebuild, give every old address a permanent redirect so your rankings carry over. Then give the site a named owner and a monthly routine.
Template or custom: which does a B2B firm need?
A template is enough for a new or small firm with one clear service, and many firms should start on one. A firm that competes on expertise across several services or sectors usually outgrows it, because it needs a page for each service and sector, control over structured data and crawler settings, and text AI crawlers can read without JavaScript. An adapted theme on a mainstream platform is often the middle step.
What should a B2B website cost?
It depends on scope, so published UK prices vary widely. The build is only part of the cost: hosting, maintenance, content, support and your own team's time follow. Compare quotes on a three-year total covering the same items, and ask every supplier what happens in month two. Our own prices are on our What it costs page.
What does an AI assistant need from our website?
Plain text that states what you do, who you serve, where you work and who runs the firm, on pages that load quickly and link sensibly. The main AI crawlers do not run JavaScript, as Vercel and MERJ found in December 2024, so that text must be in the page's HTML. Accurate structured data helps search engines read your facts correctly, but Google says its AI features need no special markup, so treat it as good housekeeping rather than a trick.
Does mobile matter for a B2B firm?
Yes. Google indexes and ranks the mobile version of your pages, and in our experience many B2B buyers first check a supplier on a phone, often from a LinkedIn post, an email or an AI answer. Design your key pages for a phone first: a clear headline, one line of proof, a tap-to-call number and a short form.