Like with any type of online business, the design of a SaaS website plays a huge role in how well it will be perceived by the public. Even if you have the best service in the world, a poorly designed website will put people off.
Things like missing elements, poor color and font choices, or a bad layout can all affect your conversions negatively or tarnish your brand forever, so you have to get everything right from the beginning. Let’s take a look at some of the things a great SaaS company website needs.
A Good Educational Resource
A large part of selling a SaaS service is explaining the problem it’s trying to fix. A SaaS website cannot simply be a storefront for transactions. It should also be an informational resource and an integral part of your inbound marketing strategy.
This means that you should spend as much time on building your content and interlinking it as you will have done finding the perfect design and layout for your website.
Lay out the different paths through which prospective clients will find your website and how you can walk them through to a purchase. Have content for people who have no idea what the issue you’re trying to solve is and find a way to gradually introduce them to your product while being mindful of where and when you’ll be adding calls to action.
Site owners love the SaaS model because they can sell the same service many times over without additional production costs, but they also love that they’re able to get a resource that keeps people coming without them having to constantly pour money into marketing. So, if your goal is to eventually sell the website, stocking it full of valuable content should be a priority.
A Good Color Scheme
The color scheme of your homepage will make a huge difference in how many people will stay on your page after visiting and for how long they’ll stay. It will also have a direct effect on conversions.
When picking a color scheme for your website, remember the 60/30/10 percentage rule. The main color should be neutral so that it is easy on the eyes, the second color should contrast with the first color, and the third color should be the most vibrant to attract attention to important elements like headers and calls to action.
SaaS websites can break the rules here by using the third color as the main color above the fold to grab people’s attention and get them to perform some sort of action like signing up for a free trial. They can then use the regular color scheme for the rest of the website.
If you want to find a color palette, know that there are plenty of applications and online services that will allow you to do just that. Adobe Color CC, COLOURlovers, and Paletton are all options that you can try.
Once you’ve found a palette, you can start doing some A/B testing with beta users to see how they react. Look at metrics like bounce rates and see how long they stay on the website. This will give you an indication of what works better.
Clear Value Proposition
Being able to convey your service’s value proposition fast is one of the most important things in SaaS. If you look at most successful SaaS websites, you’ll notice that they all do one thing, and that is to state their value proposition straight from the beginning. And this is what you should do.
Your value proposition should be presented the minute people get to your website, so put it above the fold. This is how most SaaS services do it, and they do it because it works. Think about what makes your service different and the problem it’s trying to solve.
Then create a statement that encapsulates this perfectly. This is something that you can do yourself or you could hire an expert to craft a main and secondary value proposition that will suck people in and push them to try your product.
There should also be a clear call to action straight above the fold. Your value proposition and call to action should be compelling enough for clients to know exactly what your service is about, make a purchase, or sign up for a trial.
In many cases, something as simple as “Sign Up” or “Buy Now” can work. But the more detailed and enticing the call will be, the better it will usually work. Trello, for instance, went from “Sign Up” to “Sign Up – It’s Free” over the years. They probably went through rounds and rounds of testing at high volumes before they made the switch and kept it for many years.
There’s a lesson here for SaaS owners. Selling through your call to action is possible and you should do it, but still keep it concise and use an eye-catching button to grab your visitors’ attention even more. Don’t be afraid to go big when it comes to the button either and play around with sizes and colors until you find what works the best.
Images of the Product
Even if you are not selling a physical product, you cannot sell a product without showing images of it. Well, you could, but that would be a horrible strategy. This is why most SaaS services — the successful ones at least — will show screenshots of the interface through the medium most people will be using it.
A video demo could work even better in some cases. But you should at least have screenshots of your service and its different functions above the fold and throughout pages so that people have an idea of what it’s like to use it.
Building a SaaS website that converts and showcases your product properly to the public takes a lot of time and planning. We suggest that you study the sector as much as you can and learn from the success of other SaaS services to inform your design choices.