Have you ever thought about the ways of designing a B2B SaaS website? Have you ever pondered upon impact it might create on your users? Are there any key elements which can convert your B2B website from zero to hero and bring you conversions which you could have only imagined? This article will help you in understanding how you must approach a B2B SaaS home page.
So whether you are a developer or a designer or even a product manager, this article has something for everyone! So let us get started.
As wise men have said “Nobody will believe in your capabilities, if you are not able to showcase them properly that what you are trying to communicate/offer”.
Same theory applies to your SaaS website. They can have all key features or the functionalities or even may be well capable enough to even make or break a nuclear war! But all its capabilities may bite dust if it is not presented well to the user of the product. It must be made sure that your homepage conveys all the functionalities it holds in the most subtle and unambiguous way.
Let us consider a scenario here. You have a world class software which addresses all the requirements of the actors involved say in the retail business. But the catch here is you invested heavily in your product and very less in your designer! So you end up with both poor design and a poor user experience which killed your conversions and gave your aspirations a bounce to hopelessness and your website a good bounce rate!
Here I am not telling you to shower your designer with cash and gold coins but have a right balance of investments in both product and its website design (All product managers take note of this). So alongside showcasing all the mighty services of your product, you should also keep a check on right UI and UX strategies on the go.
Let us take one more case. Suppose one tries to be adventurous (which one always should be) and try to explore new things and this time you end up implementing a B2C design strategies in a B2B homepage (hats off to your exploration though) and hope for best results (again hats off to your optimism) but sadly even this mix of exploration and optimism will also not be able to deliver your required targets.
There are things which one should always stick to while devising a approach for B2B SaaS Homepage design. Let us have a look at them one by one.
Navigation Bar
Navigation bar is the second most viewed component on the B2B SaaS website after your landing home page banner. You still have a doubt on this?
According to a survey, a staggering 76% people coming on a B2B website bounces back if they find it too much cluttered. All your effort in developing a product goes to waste just because a poor header messed you up.
- Minimum Elements: Navbar represents the main key elements where you want to redirect your user. So, it should contain minimum elements, in a well organized way. It creates first the impression in the users mind and you want user to feel comfortable on your page rather than attacking him with too much information on your navigation bar itself.
- Proper Spacing: There should be set spacing between elements. No overlapping of text or any design elements. You do not want a user to go to about us page when all he wanted was to go to price section (poor spacing between about us and price navigation link obviously)
So we can say that a good navigation bar helps your users to identify the elements on the navbar easily and will eliminate the probability of confusion. After all it’s all about making your user comfortable on your website.
Whitespace
Last time when I asked my friend for some “space”, I remember her punching my nose. A space was too bad for me but may be it is not as bad for your B2B SaaS Homepage. You may think of it as adding some space in your website but I see it as maintaining a text to design ratio. I feel it is more of a trade off between a fully stuffed storeroom (all information blasted out on the face of user) and an empty hall (probably you ended up having too much space).
Most of the mistakes happen in maintaining the proper text to space ratio. It makes your website look elegant and confident with increased readability. Proper use of whitespace create a focal point for users. It guides the user towards your product (your beloved conversion) rather than away from it.
Hero Banner
This is generally the big banner which is the very first element on your website which catches user’s attention. This can make or break the conversions for your product/service and this is the reason why this banner is also called hero banner. Many of the websites use sliders or “cool” animations as their opening banner which might look like a good friend on outside but turns out to be the real traitor. Moving sliders and fast paced animations or too much animations can really distract your user and divert them away from your product and hence end result being less conversions.
Jakob Nielsen, usability expert, has proven this through his tests and studies. According to his research, information placed on rotating/sliding banners is ignored. He termed it as banner blindness. It kills conversion and also takes valuable space.
Images
Images make a website more readable and understandable. But as you know too much of anything can be bad and same case applies here. In a B2B SaaS homepage, using lot of images to improve UI is not a good idea! Too many images end up confusing the user.
At that time user is just focussing on the image and not on your product probably. You may end up mesmerizing your customer with the images rather than your product and services. Proper use of product images and whitespace also build trust and you will be able to show product visually to your potential users.
So, there should be proper use of product images and illustrations. It will grab the attention of the user and lead them to the right direction. (conversions because this is all what matters probably)
CTA
If there is any other hero apart from hero banner in the web design for B2B services then that is surely your CTA’s(call to action).
Depending upon your case, CTA can vary, for some it can be start your free trial or download free version. So it should be easily visible. There must be a proper space around CTA to drag attention of the user, rather than placing it in a smaller or stuffed location in design. Color, contrast and space can help in leading customers to right actions.
Partitions
Now as we see B2B SaaS homepages, mostly they have divided their homepage in different sections. So that they can represent their information in an organized way. You can show the organization of information in two ways. First is partition with lines, which will make your homepage look more complex and user might get confused because of lines. Second method is partitioning with background color, by giving a contrasting shade to alternate sections. It creates a visual partition between the sections without drawing attention towards it.
By defining different shades to different sections, customer can easily identify the grouping of information without getting confused.
Heading and paragraph Tag:
There should be uniformity in whatever you write on your website. One aspect of that uniformity can be regarded to font size. One should always keep font size uniform across different headings, sub headings or primary texts.
Font:
In a B2B SaaS homepage, You must keep in mind that the text should be readable. Following are the 3 widely used web fonts which should be considered in a B2B SaaS homepage:
- Open Sans – 10 styles, Looks good and readable in both small and large font size.
- Roboto Source – 12 styles, Modern and combines best aspects of classic fonts.
- Sans Pro – Professional font and keeps legibility in every size.
Footer
So last but not the least, the footer. You may see this as a useless block which marks the end of your website with all the links and contact information bombarded in there. But if you believe me, probably this is the place which provides you a last chance to get a diverted user, capture him and lead towards conversion. A well spaced and a neat footer having ability to lead user to your products is your real ally. Footer should mention contact details wherein any customer can be sure of support for the products described. This provides an assurity to the customer and installs a sense of confidence about the quality of the product and support related to it.
If something like a last chance exits in the real world, (in case of conversions on website) remember the name footer.
