Many consumers don’t know the difference between Helvetica and Arial, or what “responsive design” is. But they do know a positive web-browsing experience from a poor one.
If your SaaS website isn’t customer-centric, user-friendly or intuitive, then how does that bode for your software?
Fortunately, there’s a formula for effective SaaS website design. Follow it, and watch your customer growth and retention rates soar.
What Do the Best SaaS Websites Have in Common?
Where real estate has the ABCs (Always Be Closing), SaaS website design has the UVWs – UX (user experience), Valuable content and human Writing. Together, they drive website traffic, increase brand loyalty and bolster sales. Deploy them to increase your customer LTV – lifetime value.
Understanding User Experience (UX)
User experience, or UX, refers to the flow of activities when visiting, in this case, SaaS websites. It boils down to: Can a visitor accomplish what they set out to do without obstacles or frustration?
Fortunately, there are plenty of platforms and apps on the market that can help you design a sleek and user-friendly website. (Or, you can hire a website design agency to do it for you.)
Crafting Valuable Content for Your Audience
In the best SaaS websites, valuable content – which can include blogs, podcasts, video, tutorials and more – demonstrates that your company is uniquely positioned to understand customers’ problems and provide effective solutions.
The graphic design tutorials on Canva’s website are an excellent example of valuable content, as are regular insights and reports published by global consulting firms Deloitte and PwC.
Writing Like a Human Being
A conversational tone helps your company connect and establish relationships with website visitors. It also keeps your target audience engaged so they can absorb all the valuable information your site and content provide.
Optimizing User Experience (UX) for SaaS Websites
Statistics confirm that a poor user experience can tank a sale and leave a bad taste in a customer’s mouth.
- 42% of people will leave a website as a result of poor functionality
- 89% of users will visit a competitor’s website after a poor user experience
- 38% of people will stop engaging with a website if the content/layout is unattractive
Optimizing UX in your SaaS website design centers on streamlining the user journey for ease of use and aligning your website aesthetic with users’ goals and expectations.
Accomplishing these will engender clarity, simplicity and relevance.
Tools like user flowcharts can help you discover the pathways users will take on your website. Clear paths, along with straightforward and relevant messaging, all ensure your SaaS site is centered around your users’ goals.
Birchbox, a subscription-based beauty company, is an example of a website designed with user goals at top of mind. Its uncluttered design steers visitors either toward starting a subscription or exploring detailed descriptions of the products on offer.
Practical UX Best Practices
A clean and intuitive site architecture infused with responsive and mobile-first design principles – no matter the device – is imperative to ensuring users can accomplish their goals.
This means:
- Pictures and grids readjust to fit any screen
- Text is readable without the need to zoom in
- Buttons are touch-screen friendly
- Everything on your site is clearly labeled.
Typography, how you arrange the words on a page, is key to any effective website design. “If a website’s typography works, we won’t notice. If it fails, chances are we’ll bounce off the page,” HubSpot’s Jamie Juviler says. Typography should be skimmable and accommodate shorter attention spans, and the number of different typefaces should be limited.
Testing and Iterating UX
“Experience” is integral to UX, so it should also be integral to website development. With Growth-Driven Design, a website is launched incrementally, with performance and visitor feedback informing subsequent development phases.
Tools like Qualtrics can solicit customer feedback directly via pop-up surveys or indirectly by analyzing digital movements, information you can use for the next iteration of your website.
Creating and Delivering Valuable Content
Maintaining consistent, high-quality content that delivers value, interests and engages is what keeps your website ranking on search engines and in customers’ minds. There are a few factors that go into it.
Identifying Valuable Content Topics
High-value content types include:
- Blogs: A HubSpot survey revealed 56% of marketers see a blog as their most effective content strategy. Blog posts can discuss industry trends and pain points, highlight your company’s accomplishments and more.
- Podcasts: Can feature interviews with field experts, thought leadership or discussions of current industry events and trends.
- Video: Product demos, tutorials and webinars best lend themselves to videos.
Some ways to discover content topics:
- Subscribe to newsletters, social media feeds and trade publications pertaining to the industries your SaaS product targets.
- Attend networking events where you can interact with workers in the industries your software targets.
- Conduct surveys via your blog and/or social media asking readers what topics they’d like to see covered.
Engaging and Retaining Your Audience
There are plenty of tools in today’s market, such as HubSpot CRM, to help you learn more about your customers. What better way to engage your audience than by targeting content specifically to them? Retain your audience by posting content consistently – employing an editorial schedule helps!
Integrating SEO Best Practices
Content isn’t valuable when no one can find it because of poor search engine optimization. Keys to an effective SEO strategy include:
- Creating a list of keywords based on what your website – and competitors’ websites – are currently ranking for.
- Publishing authoritative, trustworthy content.
- Ensuring titles and metadata contain keywords, and that keywords properly inform the content development process.
A tool like Surfer SEO can help with everything from keyword research to showing you whether you’re on track for optimization.
Writing and Creating for Humans
A conversational writing approach is one of the top ways to make your content relatable and engaging.
Conversational Content Marketing
On LinkedIn, content writer Neetu Jariwal provides several tips for writing in a conversational tone, including asking questions, addressing the reader as “you,” and being willing to break with grammatical conventions when the situation calls for it.
A conversational tone can also involve social media interactions, FAQs or testimonials.
Encouraging Interaction and Engagement
How do you encourage website visitors to join the conversation?
- Incentivize readers to answer questions, leave comments or write reviews by offering prizes or discounts. Again, Birchbox provides a great example this way,, giving customers points, redeemable for product discounts, for writing reviews.
- Respond to comments and reviews. (Don’t respond to trolling or abusive content, though.)
- Give readers space to interact with each other. Accounting software QuickBooks, for example, has forums where users can ask questions and share tips.
These techniques promote a vibrant website that will keep users coming back to see what’s new.
Maximizing Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)
Customer lifetime value is how much a customer will spend during the course of their relationship with your brand. Quality products and excellent customer service always factor in, but SaaS website design can help maximize LTV.
Connecting UX, Content and Humanization
Customers who keep coming back to your website – thanks in large part to its strong UX, valuable content and human writing – are bound to feel a connection to your brand. They’ll keep buying your products, contributing to higher LTV.
Impact on the Buyer Journey
Your SaaS website design can impact multiple stops on the buyer journey. Imagine this scenario:
- A buyer in the awareness stage comes across your SEO-informed website as they seek a fix for a problem.
- Your valuable content demonstrates that your company’s SaaS product is the fix.
- The buyer purchases your software without a hitch thanks to a website designed around user goals.
- During the retention stage, you maximize the buyer’s LTV by providing ample support, product upgrade opportunities and valuable content to keep them engaged with your company.
Building Brand Loyalty and Advocacy
As your company continues to provide high-quality SaaS products, your website supports and engages customers, building such loyalty that they’ll want to tell friends, colleagues, social media followers and complete strangers how much they value your brand.
Partner With Kuno Creative for Your SaaS Website Success
With all of the elements that go into successful SaaS website design, it can seem like a lot to handle on your own. It’s easier with Kuno Creative as your partner.
At Kuno Creative, we have a deep understanding of tech products and SaaS website design – and our portfolio shows it. We won’t barrel in and apply a bunch of one-size-fits-all marketing principles. We listen to you and the goals you have for your company and then partner with you to make them happen. We monitor KPIs like organic web traffic and qualified leads so we’re best positioned to deliver measurable results and recalibrate as warranted based on large- and small-scale factors.
If your SaaS company has questions about our expertise, schedule a consultation so we can get to know your organization and your goals!
