10 Best SaaS Websites of 2021: Why They Work & Key Features to Optimize Your Site
We’ve all heard it before: “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” But, when it comes to your website, its web design can make or break your SaaS company. It’s the first thing people see when they discover your brand, and it may be your only chance to make a good impression.
And, to complicate things yet further, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution for every business. SaaS companies must build a website that provides their customers with the best user experience possible.
With large enterprises expediting the digitization of customer and supply-chain interactions and of their internal operations by three to four years, and a third of small business (up from 20%) increasing their annual spend to $1.2m on SaaS, you don’t want to miss out on your share of the business.
Customers expect you to have a website with visual appeal and a user-friendly and intuitive user interface. While there are no hard and fast rules to SaaS design, there are plenty of practices and features you can implement to ensure that you have the best web design in your industry. Below, we will discuss:
- What is a SaaS website?
- What makes a good SaaS website?
- SaaS website best practices to get conversions
- 10 best SaaS websites
What is a SaaS website?
If you’re reading this, you probably already know what SaaS is. Just in case, SaaS, or Software as a Service, is a method of software delivery that allows your customers to access their data from any device with an internet connection and a web browser.
Essentially, your website is the face of your company. Your landing page or home page is perhaps the first time a visitor notices your brand. From here, they can find out more about your product features and get answers to their questions. You’ll also have the opportunity to make them special offers to improve conversion rates and promote customer retention.
Your website is a vital part of a SaaS business model. Because your service is web-based, you must make sure that your SaaS website reflects your vision, mission, and product. You also need to speak to your target audience through design elements that speak to them.
What makes a good SaaS website?
If you’re looking to convert customers, you need to catch their attention with an attractive web design. The human attention span is shorter than ever. Over 55% of people spend fewer than 15 seconds actively navigating a page. So, you have mere seconds to convince prospects to stick around.
Characteristics of an effective SaaS website
Consistent
Your SaaS website shouldn’t take design inspiration from an M. Night Shyamalan movie. An essential element of a SaaS website is that it delivers a consistent and predictable experience for visitors. Critical elements should stand out and guide your customers through to your product pages where they can, at last, commit to your service.
Responsive Design
Today, all websites need to have a responsive design. This means your website must function well across all types of devices, potential customers should have no problems scrolling or moving between web pages, and the user experience shouldn’t change from mobile to desktop.
Creating a responsive design doesn’t mean constructing a completely separate site for mobile devices but building on your website to work well across devices.
Accessible and easy to navigate
In line with consistency and a responsive design, your website must be accessible and easy to navigate. Your customers should be able to move effortlessly from your landing page to the pricing page before making their way to the payment process.
Make your website intuitive to use and visually appealing. Ensure that your mobile website and web browser are suitable for the visually impaired—Select colors accessible for people with color blindness.
Data-driven
Good SaaS websites are designed based on a data-driven approach. It takes the guesswork out of web design and relies on hard data to make user experience and design decisions. SaaS businesses should start with a small, minimalist design and then develop their site based on user responses gathered by analytics software.
This approach not only tailors your site to its visitors, but it’s also quicker to launch, more cost-effective, and will be more successful overall.
Simple
The best SaaS website designs are simple, not flashy or complex. These sites use white space effectively and don’t overcrowd their web pages.
While you want to keep it simple, you should employ minimalist designs that still infuse your design with the essence of your brand. Include your company colors, logo, and standard font to set yourself apart. Look at how Evernote’s website design maintains its branding while providing plenty of white space and a minimalistic design.
Key features of a good SaaS website
Free demo or free trial
Whether you’re a SaaS startup or a well-established company, you can improve customer conversions by offering a free demo or a free trial. Many B2B SaaS businesses provide prospects with a free demo. It allows organizations to try the software and learn about all the ways it can improve its operation.
For B2C SaaS businesses, it can be extremely beneficial to offer single users a free trial. Often, users provide their payment details right away and are charged after a certain number of days. Generally, customers who commit to giving their payment details up front are more likely to keep using the service.
Take a look at how Shopify highlights their free trial offer directly on their homepage.
Above the fold value proposition
Don’t be shy about how your product can help people who visit your site. Include a benefit-driven value proposition at the very top of your web page. This “above the fold” value proposition needs to be relevant and impactful to encourage users to look further.
For example, Salesforce does a great job with their above-the-fold proposition on their landing page. It targets businesses that want to grow and highlights their position in the CRM industry. It provides site visitors with a link to a successful case study and call to action buttons.
Compelling call to action
What’s the point of capturing your visitor’s attention if you aren’t going to give them a call to action (CTA)? A good CTA encourages your prospects to take the next step and subscribe. A CTA can ask visitors to:
- Subscribe to receive email marketing
- Sign up for a free trial
- Start their subscription with your service.
Social proof
Don’t just tell visitors that your service is the best fit for them. Show them. Here are some ways you can get more conversions using social proof:
- Show reviews to build trust
- Use rating platforms like Capterra or Trustpilot
- Provide case studies
- Engage in social media
- Get testimonials and endorsements
- Encourage referrals for lead generation, building trust in your brand through word of mouth.
Adopting these techniques will build your brand’s personality and identity, rendering it less abstract and foreign than if a prospective customer just stumbled upon your name online.
Live chat
Live chat is becoming more popular than ever for straightforward and effective customer service. It allows your prospects to connect with you directly from their device without needing to call. Not only does this give your brand a point of personal connection, but you can also answer questions in real-time for an enhanced customer experience.
You can quickly address any pain points your customer may have and tell them how your service may fix these for them.
SaaS website best practices to get conversions
You may have all the features of a great SaaS website, but are you providing all the right information? Is that information easy to find? Optimizing your website is a vital step in attracting more customers. Here are the best practices you need to follow to stand among the best in SaaS web design.
Use videos
Throughout this article, we’ve discussed how critical it is to develop a human connection with your prospects. Using videos is one effective way to do that. According to Biteable, 74% of marketers say that video has a better return on investment than static imagery.
Adding videos to your site makes each visitor spend a longer time exploring, leading to more conversions. It also means that you can also post those videos to social media platforms as a form of omnichannel marketing.
Use targeted messaging
Don’t try to cater to everyone with your website. Target it towards the people who use your service most frequently. Go through the persona discovery process to identify who your target audience is. Then identify the specific messaging that resonates with each of your personas.
After that, you can create targeted landing pages to drive traffic to your site. This involves using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) that predicts what your personas are searching for so you can adapt to pop up in their day-to-day internet searches.
You can also adopt a content marketing strategy tailored to your target demographic to capture them throughout their online journey. This will increase brand exposure, and ultimately, conversions.
Provide all necessary information
Make sure you’re providing all the information your customer needs. This includes:
How your product works
Be clear about what your product is and how it works. Visitors will move on to other options quickly if they are confused about what you do.
Complete list of features
List all the features your service provides. Make sure your customers know about all the functionalities you have to offer.
Complete contact information
If visitors have a question, they shouldn’t have to search far and wide to find a way to reach you. Don’t make them fill out a form for you to contact them. They want to know that you’re there for them, even before you subscribe.
Prices
The key to a good website and a great SaaS company is transparency. Being transparent about pricing is one way to build trust with your prospects. If you have a selection of plans, list the features and perks that come with each and make site visitors aware of any free trials, just as Favro does in the screenshot below.
Make contact details easy to locate
We’ve already said that your customers shouldn’t have to stalk you to find your contact details. Make it clear on your landing pages where customers can find your contact information. If you have a live chat feature, include this on every page in the bottom corner so that it’s in full view for your visitors.
10 best SaaS websites
Now that we’ve gone over the basics let’s look at 10 of the best SaaS websites that can serve as a basic template for your SaaS web design. Each has proven itself the best in terms of design features, characteristics, and best practices.
1. Kajabi
Directly on its homepage, Kajabi features everything we’re talking about regarding best practices and features. As their effective marketing strategy, they state their main value proposition plainly and unpack all their features.
Not only do they feature a video, but they also have a call to action and a free trial. Their minimalist design doesn’t inhibit their branding, and pricing is clearly visible at the top of the page.
2. Petal
Think about it: when was the last time you were truly impressed by a banking website? Petal has broken the cycle with a straightforward user flow that takes advantage of an interactive design to attract visitors to scroll down.
It has plenty of white space along with an attractive visual design.
3. Typeform
Typeform makes filling out online forms look fun and easy with its interactive and clean design. It uses a muted color palette which is particularly easy on the eye. The brand focuses on
how their product works, and how to start your free trial directly on their homepage.
4. WuFoo
WuFoo makes creating forms, automating workflows, and drafting reports look simple. They include videos directly on their landing page to make their website more engaging. The site also has large CTA buttons that include a free sign-up and a live demo.
5. DocuSign
If you’ve ever had to sign official paperwork online, there’s a good chance you’ve used DocuSign yourself. They use social proof on their landing page to declare that “750,000 customers and hundreds of millions of signers” have already used their product. The business implements two of the best digital marketing tools, offering a free trial and live chat with their team.
6. DropBox
Dropbox employs a simplistic web design to help them convert their prospects. Right on its homepage, it includes a list of key features that Dropbox has to offer. It’s an expandable list that directs visitors to specific pages to lead them to subscribe to the service.
7. Hubspot
Hubspot provides CRM software for a wide range of users. They make this point clear on their page by listing their different services and most popular features. They also have a live chat feature with several different CTA buttons. Visitors are directed towards trying a specific service, try it for free, or get a premium demo.
8. Slack
Slack highlights its central tagline that business collaboration that leads to effective project management can be bold and downright pleasant. Its home page includes a demo video with a free trial offer button. The bold geometric design is distinctive and captures the visitor’s attention.
9. MailChimp
MailChimp takes the branding of its marketing tools seriously. The site uses an iconic font with a CTA for visitors to choose a plan. Its understated but unique designs are directed towards a business audience.
10. Spotify
While many of the SaaS websites we’ve explored are aimed at businesses, Spotify is a personal SaaS product that has taken command of the music streaming industry. Its
landing page is on-trend while maintaining a minimalist design that highlights the software’s key selling points. Users can get three months free, and users can cancel anytime.
Conclusion
To convert visitors as a SaaS company, you must make your web design a priority. If you’re building your SaaS website, you should consider the important elements we’ve discussed that make up the blueprint for success. And if you already have a website, give thought to reviewing it to see if it’s working for you at its best.
Optimizing your site can seem like a daunting task, but follow our advice and keep it simple before implementing data-driven changes. Now go out and build the best SaaS website in your industry to drive your company to success.
If you are enjoying this post why not book a consultation with accelerate agency to see how we can help skyrocket your SaaS business
