You’ve put months of time, effort and money into creating a new B2B website that entertains, educates and, ideally, converts. Launch day is approaching, but the journey from staging site to the live site now feels like it’s entered unfamiliar terrain. Here’s a proven path for reaching your destination.
The final step is quality assurance, or QA, and it’s the unheralded hero of B2B website success. If your organization is like most, you only launch a new website every five to 10 years, so it’s unlikely you have an established process for website QA. Trust us: It involves much more than checking for typos and broken links. Instead, it’s an intricate workflow that touches every aspect of your website — from content to code and accessibility to security.
These nine steps to high-quality QA should provide the foundation you need to launch a B2B website that performs at the highest level from day one.
01
Create a QA workflow with assigned roles and responsibilities.
- Assign clear roles. Your entire team shouldn’t individually QA every aspect of the website. That kind of responsibility overlap guarantees something will be missed, QA tickets will be duplicated and far too much time will be spent. Instead, assign specific individuals to the areas of content, design, functionality and other areas of QA we will discuss here.
- Establish a sequence of QA passes. QA team members should not test the website at the same time; instead, plan the process in phases. This will aid in the organization of QA tickets, reduce the staging site load and help to reinforce the individual nature of each person’s QA responsibilities.
- Leverage the expertise of non-creatives. While the writers, designers and developers who built the website are authorities on how it should look and function, it is also easy for these team members to miss errors in their own work or overlook hurdles the average user might have to overcome. To combat this, make sure your website is tested by team members who had no hand in building the website. Better yet: For a fresh perspective, pull in those who didn’t participate in the project at all.
- Digital tools are your friends. There are many third-party tools that add efficiency and clarity to the QA process. Generally, we recommend tools that allow you to tag specific elements of a website page with feedback and provide the ability to tag other users with questions or tasks. If you use a tool like this, ensure the screenshots it takes maintain the device type and screen size present when a ticket is created. At AvreaFoster, we use a tool called Bugherd — both for our internal QA process and for client feedback.
02
Audit all website content against approved copy and design.
This seems like a no-brainer — after all, isn’t website content a core pillar of the QA process? While it certainly is, website content QA for typos or design issues leaves the job only half complete.
In addition to hunting for obvious errors, it’s also critical that those doing the QA check the written and visual content of the website against the latest client-approved assets. Simply checking for typos won’t catch a missing headline or a repeated paragraph. Similarly, scanning for design problems won’t help you if an image swap wasn’t executed or a color adjustment wasn’t made.
For these reasons, make sure you have a single source of truth for both content and design that can serve as your touchstone during the QA process.
03
Test core functionality — including primary user journeys.
In addition to testing the navigation, links and form submissions, don’t forget to put yourself in the mindset of an actual website user. Your website visitors won’t read every page of the website and navigate through it chronologically. But assuming your B2B website was crafted thoughtfully, there are some common user paths that correspond to the way your target audiences prefer to interact with digital content.
Be sure to simulate these user journeys from start to finish — particularly those journeys that don’t necessarily begin on the homepage. Are you able to find answers as quickly as you intended? Are the calls to action overt? Does the website subtly but successfully funnel engaged users toward your conversion actions? These are questions that must be answered during the QA process.
Here is a quick punch list of core functionality elements that you should check as part of a thorough QA process:
- Navigation and Footer Links
- Search Functionality
- Cross-Page Links (both hyperlinks and CTAs)
- Form Submissions
- Non-Form Conversion Actions
- Outbound Links (i.e., an investor portal)
- Blog Feed/Product Categorization Tools
- Interactive Tools (i.e., a pricing calculator)
- Product Check-Out Process (if applicable)
04
Test the website across relevant device types, operating systems and browsers.
When it comes to B2B websites, marketers sometimes have the tendency to over-emphasize the desktop experience. While it’s true that — unlike for B2C websites — desktop users largely outnumber mobile users and are much more likely to convert, you cannot totally ignore the mobile and tablet experience.
Many users still do pre-conversion research on mobile devices. In fact, the average B2B website’s traffic is 20-35% mobile. So, if you average something like 2,000 website sessions each month, you’re looking at 400-700 mobile sessions.
Even if your website visitors are 95% desktop users, they will have diverse operating systems and browsers. For this reason, it’s vital that you test your website’s performance across all prevalent operating systems and website browsers across various device types.
Now that we’ve convinced you to do QA on the mobile experience and browser performance your B2B website provides, let’s talk about effectively testing across device types. There are tools, like BrowserStack, that allow you to visualize your website through the lens of different mobile devices and browsers — including browsers that have been sunset. Alternatively, you also can simply change the size of your browser window to examine the mobile experience.
While these approaches are valid and convenient, we strongly recommend testing your B2B website on actual mobile devices and in actual browser environments. Don’t launch your website if you’ve only simulated the conditions your audience will experience in reality.
05
Check SEO content and technical optimizations.
- Page Titles
- Meta Descriptions
- Image Alt Text
- URL Structure
- On-Page Content Tagging
- 301 Redirects
- Page Crosslinks
- NoFollow Links
- Inbound Link Destinations
- XML Sitemap Accessibility
- Robots.txt File Accessibility
06
Ensure domestic and international accessibility compliance.
- ADA: In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act is the primary accessibility rubric to lean on when designing a website. Explore the ADA accessibility standards here.
- Section 508: Not as broadly applicable but just as important, Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 is a U.S. federal law that mandates additional accessibility standards. It applies primarily to federal agencies and departments; however, it also extends to some organizations that work closely with the federal government to sell their products. Learn more about Section 508 here.
- Section 504: This set of guidelines is closely related to Section 508, but rather than applying to federal agencies and those who work closely with them, it applies to organizations that receive federal funding. These are most commonly schools, universities, hospitals and nursing homes. If this applies to your organization, be sure to review Section 504 guidelines here.
- WCAG: The Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, or WCAG, are international standards for website accessibility. While not a mandated law, the standards set forth by WCAG directly influence the language found in the ADA and are wise to consider if your B2B company does a fair amount of international business. Check out WCAG’s standards here.
07
Conduct performance and load testing.
Your B2B website is filled with highly valuable content and data-heavy resources, so be sure users can access all of it quickly — even during times of peak traffic. We recommend testing website load times, page load times and server response times as a baseline for website performance.
Why is this so important? Studies show that roughly 40% of website users will abandon a website that takes longer than three seconds to load. The number is even higher for mobile traffic. While three seconds seems like a remarkably brief time, it’s also been shown that, psychologically, website visitors often perceive load times to be longer than they actually are.
In addition to speed testing, it also can be important for you to conduct load testing as part of your QA process. Load testing is an inspection of your website’s performance with the maximum number of concurrent visitors you expect it to accommodate. There are many facets to load testing — from stress testing to soak testing to spike testing. For a comprehensive look at load testing rationale and best practices, we recommend this article from BrowserStack.
08
Conduct a security audit.
- Vulnerability Scanning
- SSL Certification Validation
- Data Encryption Checks
B2B website QA can be daunting. We're here to help.
Performing effective quality assurance can be complex, but it’s important that a comprehensive QA process is followed closely before you launch your B2B website. These steps aren’t just about checking a box; they ensure your website puts your company’s best foot forward and successfully serves users in all circumstances. In other words, you’re not just assuring quality — you’re assuring success.
If a new website is on the horizon for your B2B company and you’re looking for a trusted agency partner who can craft an outstanding digital experience and ensure it performs at the highest level, let’s talk.
Unsure whether or not you need a new website? Check out our article on that topic: Do We Rebuild or Refresh Our Website?
