Your services make sense to you. Can a new visitor find the right one?
Organise B2B website navigation around the way a prospective client identifies their need. Use service labels when buyers know the service, audience routes when their role changes the offer, and task routes for clear actions. Test the structure with realistic questions before investing in visual menus.
Put the advice into practice
Give your next major prospect a clearer reason to choose you
Plan the content, design and enquiry pathways around the work you want to win.
Discuss your website projectChoose the route that matches a real buying task
A complex organisation may describe its work through internal divisions, but a new visitor is trying to resolve a particular problem. Those two structures do not always match. Navigation should provide an understandable route from the visitor’s starting point to the right detail.
Ask what someone already knows when they arrive. A facilities director might know they need a building assessment. A board member might only know they need independent advice before an acquisition. A current client may be looking for a reporting portal. These are different tasks and may deserve different routes.
You do not need to make one navigation method do everything. A primary services menu can sit beside an audience route where there is a genuine difference in information. Avoid building parallel sections that repeat the same pages with slightly different introductions.
Compare three useful navigation models
| Model | Works well when | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Service-led: Advisory, Assessments, Training | Buyers recognise the service they need | Internal terminology that clients do not use |
| Audience-led: Boards, Operations teams, Public organisations | Different audiences require distinct scope or evidence | Repeated pages where only the audience label changes |
| Task-led: Plan a review, Find training, Access reports | Visitors arrive with a specific action | Vague verbs that conceal what is behind the link |
The decision should follow the information, not a preference for a fashionable menu format. If “Who we help” leads to genuinely different requirements and examples, it may be useful. If every route ends at identical copy, a simpler services structure may be clearer.
Use labels that remain understandable away from a design presentation. A link called “Explore” depends heavily on surrounding context. “Risk assessments” tells someone what to expect before they open it.
Sketch one architecture before designing the menu
Consider a hypothetical consultancy offering governance advice, compliance assessments and team training. A first structure could be Services, Sectors, Selected work, About and Contact. Under Services, each recognised service gets a page. Under Sectors, only sectors with materially different requirements receive their own supporting information.
Keep an alternative route for common needs. A governance article can link directly to the relevant assessment page; a project example can connect the original problem to the service delivered. Navigation is one part of the route through a website, alongside descriptive links within useful content.
The B2B service page briefing guide helps define what the destination page should contain. A clear menu cannot compensate for a destination that never explains suitability, process or the deliverable.
Run a small tree test with neutral tasks
A tree test presents the proposed labels without the visual website. Write a realistic situation and ask someone where they would look. For example: “Your organisation needs an independent review before renewing a supplier agreement. Where would you start?” Avoid putting the intended menu label into the question.
- Give the participant a simple expandable outline or printed list.
- Ask them to choose a route without coaching.
- Record their first choice, final destination and any hesitation.
- Ask what they expected to find at the selected destination.
- Compare recurring problems across tasks before changing labels.
Use a findings sheet with task, expected page, chosen route, observed difficulty and proposed change. A participant choosing differently is evidence about the structure, rather than a reason to explain why the intended answer was correct. These observations guide revision; a small informal test does not establish a universal success rate.
Check the interaction as well as the labels
Once the structure is clear, test the actual menu with a keyboard and at mobile widths. People should be able to reach and operate controls, understand what is open and follow links without relying only on hovering. W3C’s menu guidance provides implementation considerations for accessible navigation.
Finish by checking priority. If every department demands a top-level item, ask which visitor task that item supports and whether it needs to be visible on every page. Move lower-priority material into relevant sections while retaining useful contextual links. The result should make the next step easier to choose, with enough detail to distinguish your services.
For a complex service website, include the proposed navigation and key buyer tasks in the website design brief. They provide a stronger starting point than a menu copied from another organisation.
