In this post, we share a few website design and development best practices that can quickly improve your SaaS homepage. Some best practices include creating a clear value proposition, visible CTAs, cohesive design, and adding testimonials to your homepage.
It only takes about 50 milliseconds (or 0.05 seconds) for visitors on your website to:
- Make a judgment about whether they like it, and
- Decide whether to stay or leave.
That’s barely enough time for your brain to register the colors on the page, much less read your stellar content. That’s why a well-designed homepage is so important.
Couple that statistic with the fact that 85% of business apps are expected to be SaaS-based by 2025, and it’s not hard to see that SaaS companies have little to no room for error when it comes to first impressions.
Considering visitors often land on a website’s homepage first, it’s crucial that SaaS companies pay extra attention to the design of this page. But what exactly makes a great SaaS homepage? Here’s some insight we’ve gleaned through our experience with SaaS web design.
Importance of a Well-Designed SaaS Homepage
The homepage of your SaaS website is often where your relationship with each prospect begins. This is your biggest opportunity to drive your differentiators and build brand recognition.
How do you know if your homepage is well-designed? Consider whether it’s meeting these key functions.
Generate Leads
A well-designed SaaS homepage serves as a powerful lead generation tool by instantly conveying the software’s value proposition, addressing user pain points, and fostering trust. It employs clear and concise messaging to articulate the product’s benefits, showcasing its unique features and how they solve specific customer problems.
Visually engaging elements, such as compelling graphics and videos, capture visitors’ attention, while prominently placed calls-to-action (CTAs) encourage users to take the next step, whether it’s signing up for a free trial, scheduling a demo, or downloading valuable resources like whitepapers or case studies. Trust-building elements like customer testimonials, industry recognitions, and security badges instill confidence in potential leads. Finally, responsive design and easy navigation ensure a seamless user experience, making it effortless for visitors to explore and engage with the SaaS offering, ultimately driving lead generation and conversion.
Meet Buyers Where They Are
Not every visitor to your website is new, and it’s important to keep that in mind when planning a SaaS website that’s intended to convert visitors.
A good SaaS homepage will serve all customers in the buying cycle, whether they’ve never heard of your brand or have already completed a live demo.
If you haven’t already done so, take the time to map out your buyer’s journey, and consider what information they might be looking for at each stage. Then, offer different CTA options that will meet each visitor where they are.
Provide a Good User Experience
A good user experience is critical to any website, but especially to ones that are selling tech solutions.
Today’s consumers come with certain expectations for their experience with a web page. If those expectations aren’t immediately met, they leave.
Some of these user experience expectations include:
- Quick website speed and loading times
- A well-organized web page
- Immediate access to the information they’re looking for
- A simple-to-use navigation structure
- Short, broken-up and skimmable copy
- Visual representations, especially for SaaS products and other software
If your visitors feel these needs aren’t met immediately upon landing on your homepage, they’re likely to assume that your tech product won’t meet their needs either. After all, tech solutions are supposed to reduce frustrations and make life easier, not harder.
Get Ahead of the Competition
Aligning with user experience, many consumers today prioritize ease of use when making software decisions, especially when purchasing at the enterprise level. Companies don’t have the time or resources to extensively train all of their employees on new software, which means they need it to feel intuitive.
If your SaaS homepage is simpler, cleaner and more intuitive than your competitors’ sites, you’ve already gained a clear advantage in the fight for that visitor’s business.
5 Elements That Make a Great Homepage
You know what functions should be met with a great homepage, but how can you go about achieving those? Here are a few SaaS web design best practices that can quickly improve your homepage.
1. Make Your Value Proposition Clear
You could have an awesome website with a great user experience, but if it looks and sounds exactly like all of the other SaaS homepages out there, you’re not really doing yourself any favors.
Consider the following:
- Which features make your SaaS product stand out?
- What economic value are you providing to customers?
- What major pain points is your SaaS solution solving for your customers?
- Why should someone choose your SaaS product over the potentially hundreds or thousands of other similar software solutions on the market?
The answers to these questions should be succinctly summarized into 1-2 sentences and placed above the fold. After all, the only way to distinguish yourself from the pack is to let people know what makes you different. Your visitors shouldn’t have to hunt for this information – because they won’t.
2. A Quick Snapshot of Who You Are
Have you ever found yourself scouring a homepage for a description of what a company actually does, only to come up short? Don’t be that guy.
The top of your homepage should include a 1-sentence description of who you are and what you’re offering. This shouldn’t be a guessing game for your visitors.
For example, our own in-house SaaS solution, SimpleStage, includes a phrase above the fold that says, “The complete solution to communicate with your clients at every stage of the website creation process.”
Immediately, you have an idea of what it is (an online software), what it does (simplifies collaboration) and who it’s for (web agencies, designers, developers and their clients). This information can quickly validate for a visitor whether they’re in the right place for what they need.
3. Enticing & Visible CTAs
CTAs are perhaps the most important piece of your SaaS homepage. Why? Because the whole point of the page is to drive action, and CTAs let your visitors know how they’re supposed to do that.
CTAs should be clear, persuasive and prominent. You should always have a CTA above the fold of your site, at the bottom of your homepage and throughout your homepage. Common CTAs used on SaaS homepages include:
- Schedule a Demo
- Start Your Free Trial
- Learn More
- Get Started
- Become a Beta Tester
Whatever your CTA of preference is, make sure it directly answers your visitor’s question of, “Now what?”
4. Cohesive Design & Color Palette
A good SaaS homepage should look and feel modern and visually appealing. It should also be consistent with your branding on other channels and materials, such as social media graphics and print collateral.
Some simple ways to achieve a well-designed homepage include:
- Utilizing white space, or the empty space surrounding your text and graphics, to avoid the page looking crowded
- Avoiding the use of too many colors or colors that clash
- Using easy-to-read fonts that match your brand tone – with no more than two font types to a page
- Using color blocks, pull quotes, graphics, videos, animations and other design elements to help clearly distinguish sections and draw the eye
- Taking a “less is more” approach to written content to maintain readability
5. Testimonials or Case Studies
After you’ve made your initial first impression, your prospects want to know that your product actually works. It’s always a good idea to include short quotes from customers, case studies and statistics on your homepage that help demonstrate the effectiveness of your solution.
Including feedback, reviews and success stories from real customers can help you quickly build trust and credibility – both of which are often factors considered when making a purchase decision.
Build a SaaS Homepage That Converts Visitors
In summary, the best SaaS homepages provide a good user experience that converts visitors into customers. Investing in a well-designed SaaS website, SaaS SEO strategy, and homepage is a relatively easy way to one-up your competition and grow your sales.
Motion Tactic has worked with many SaaS companies to develop effective websites with a measurable return on investment. Get in touch now to schedule a free consultation!
