What percentage of your saas website design effort is devoted to the homepage?
Just the homepage! Your answer sets the tone for this post. Your homepage is one of the most visited pages and certainly the most crucial element of a website for a SaaS company. It cannot be emphasized enough that if your website and your homepage are not compelling enough, your prospects won’t go deeper to find the benefits of your product.
Keep in mind your end goal for creating this homepage is to:
- Clearly explain your visitors who you are and what you can offer for them
- Make it easier for them to reach the next stage of the buying process
Here are the elements that you should focus on to create or redesign your SaaS homepage. Because it is a vital jigsaw piece to a SaaS company’s inbound marketing.
1. A short and compelling proposition
The value proposition communicates to your potential customers, what unique value can you add to their business. It is a one-line selling point that is the crux of your service.
2. Perfect call-to-actions
This is the entire point of creating a homepage. To draw your customers to your product, and perform an action that puts them in the next stage of buyer’s journey. It could lead them to a landing page, requesting a demo or to your products and pricing catalog. Ideally, it should be a single CTA but it depends on your conversion process. Some companies use different CTAs that lead to different landing pages.
3. Easy navigation
Customers are easy to lose if they don’t get the information they seek. The menu bar and the footer are two key elements controlling that. Now, it is true that the menu bar should be minimalist, it combined with the footer should contain all the links necessary to your customer. For a SaaS customer, the normal conversion funnel might be too slow. For this, it should be easy for them to find the contact links which should be right on the top of your website or well placed in the footer.
As you can see in the two images above, a clutter free home-page where the visitors,
- Have clear understanding of the value proposition of the service with a simple tag and text element
- Know the next step with one CTA
- Minimal menu bar will all necessary elements in the footer and contact number well highlighted
- List of customers on the first view of the website
- Direct button to an introductory video on the home screen
4. Showcase customers
It’s a crucial element of your website. Your potential customers could see who are the ones reaping the benefits of your services. Also, it doesn’t hurt to add a few client testimonials, if that doesn’t clutter the homepage. This gives the customer the best idea of what your service does for them.
5. Product Visuals
It makes it easier for customers to perceive the value of something once they see it. Adding visuals on the homepage shows what your product is going to be like. And a video explaining the benefits or the usage of the product should not be far. Keep in mind, the length of this introductory video should not exceed 3 minutes. Ideally, it should be between 30 to 60 seconds. And these should directly link to full product descriptions and demo videos.
Remember these basics
There are many elements of a website that we generally forget to put emphasis on which are important for your customers. Given below are some considerable ones.
Speed
If your website takes more than 3 seconds to load, you probably have already lost the customer. Increasing the speed of your website almost always increases conversion.
Security
Most people are already skeptical about putting in their personal information on a website they do not trust, especially details of their credit card. Using an HTTPS not only solves that but also avoids negative associations of the page not being secure. Also, it is good to mention what service backs your security needs in the footer.
Team
Although this does not affect your buyer’s journey it is beneficial to mention the key drivers of your business, the CEO, developers, support. Pictures of your team along with a brief description which is regularly updated are sufficient.
Social media icons
Not only this promotes the growth of followers, but also makes it easier for your customers to find you online as the icons make you accessible to them.
Awards
Doing this would showcase your credibility in service garnered by your business, and also exhibit your potential to your customers.
Conclusion
Above could determines the success of a homepage when undertaking a saas website design. Making a great SaaS homepage requires much more than just these elements, it requires thought, design, and experimentation. And of course, it requires being responsive to your customer’s needs. What has been your experience? Would you like to share (via comments) how your SaaS product did after a website redesign?
