SaaS Website Best Practices for Conversion Optimization
Steve Krug’s book Don’t Make Me Think captures a core tenet of conversion optimization: People have a limited reserve of energy when researching a solution to their problem. Don’t make them think too hard about how your website or product will solve that problem. If it isn’t intuitive, if it doesn’t provide an obvious and engaging user experience, they will leave.
But giving your users a clear journey is harder than you might think. So in this article, we’ve compiled our top SaaS website best practices, including actionable strategies for improving conversion rates.
The Importance of CRO for SaaS Websites
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is especially important for SaaS websites. Revenue growth depends on your ability to convert visitors to trials, trials to paying customers, and customers into long-term, loyal users.
To help, SaaS optimization generally focuses on four key components:
- A landing page that sells the next step
- A call to action for taking that step
- An optimized way to take action (content form, sign up process, etc.)
- A “Thank You” experience that helps the visitor be successful at this new step
The landing page will make or break your SaaS conversion rates. The landing page can serve traffic from outside the website, or satisfy on-site offers, such as the ubiquitous “Learn more”. Every one of these pages should be enticing the prospect to go to the next step.
Optimizers treat almost every webpage as a landing page, giving the visitor what they are looking for and asking them to take the next step.
For more on building effective landing pages, see 17 Lead Generation Landing Page Examples.
Web Design Elements to Consider for Optimal SaaS Website Performance
CRO for SaaS websites is largely about improving the user experience. For example, these elements can make or break your SaaS conversion rates:
- Clear value proposition
- Engaging CTAs pointing to the next step
- Trust indicators, payment partner logos, security badges, and links to your privacy policy
- Social proof, including customer testimonials and customer logos
- Page load speed
- Mobile optimized template
- Helpful navigation
To optimize your SaaS website for conversions, a memorable user experience is created at every touchpoint, but especially on these web pages:
- Product page: Provides all of the information a visitor needs to move to pricing
- Pricing page: Helps the visitor understand their choices and offers trial or purchase
- Homepage: Directs traffic to the landing pages within the site
- Contact page: Catches those who fall out of the typical journey
When a user clicks on one of these pages, they should see the information they expect. A product page should tell them all about the product, answering their questions about what it does and how. A pricing page should show visitors their buying options and what they get with each package. Sitewide, visitors should be able to find the information they’re looking for in just a few clicks.
The challenge is creating that experience. It’s impossible to know in advance what will work — and your own preferences don’t matter. To design a website that attracts and converts your best customers, you need to test everything.
In short, you need to leverage CRO best practices to continually refine and improve your website.
Proven CRO Strategies and Tips for SaaS Website Success
CRO tactics include a wide range of disciplines: testing, usability improvements, marketing, design best practices, and more. Here are nine strategies proven to improve SaaS website conversion rates.
CRO Strategy #1: A/B Testing
A/B testing, also called split testing, gives us a highly reliable way to test an idea, or hypothesis. It’s based on the scientific method and attempts to disprove a hypothesis about how a page could be changed to improve a specific conversion rate. If the hypothesis cannot be disproved, it is assumed to be true.
A/B testing starts with a hypothesis. For example, if we believe our customer logos are too far down a page, our test hypothesis would be:
If we move the portion of the landing page containing customer logos to below the hero area, we expect more visitors to complete the form as measured by conversion rate.
An experiment is then designed to test the hypothesis. In the case of our hypothesis, a variation of the page is designed. Traffic is sent equally to the original and the variation.
Then we see which generated the most conversions. If there is a statistical improvement in the performance of variation, it becomes the new page — and new control to be beat.
Optimizers take great care to ensure statistical relevance is achieved with each A/B test. The variation with the statistically higher conversion rate becomes the new page to be optimized.
A/B testing delivers incremental gains in SaaS conversions month over month. Use it to put upward pressure on your sales funnel conversion rates and improve lead generation campaigns.
To see how optimizers do it, see our A/B testing guide and A/B testing tools overview.
CRO Strategy #2: Messaging
If your messaging doesn’t address the user’s problem or desire, or if it’s confusing on any level, there is very little we can do to improve your conversion rates.
Compelling messaging establishes your value proposition in your visitors’ minds. A study by Nielsen Norman Group found that a page with a clear value proposition can hold people’s attention longer — as much as one or two minutes longer — but you must communicate your value proposition within 10 seconds.
Optimizers will focus on the opening statements. This should express who you are and what you do as quickly as possible. It answers two questions:
- Am I in the right place to solve my problem?
- Is there a good reason to keep exploring this solution?
CityCliq improved their positioning and increased the clickthrough rate of their home page 90%. Their original positioning statement didn’t communicate what they do: “Businesses grow faster online.” The new positioning statement was a direct statement about what the user gets from their product: “Create a webpage for your business.” This change improved clickthrough in two weeks.
To be effective, your messaging must meet the user’s expectations. Optimizers try to give visitors the right information on the right page (e.g., pricing information on the pricing page). The goal is to answer their questions completely, anticipating their questions.
Here are a few ways to improve the messaging on your SaaS website:
- Be direct, clear, and action-oriented.
- Use graphics and video that enhance your messaging.
- Use layout to place your message in the right place.
- Personalize when possible.
CRO Strategy #3: Personalization
Personalization is an effective way to improve engagement — and this often means more conversions. According to McKinsey2, 71% of consumers expect you to deliver personalized interaction, and 76% get frustrated if you don’t.
To create loyalty and improve conversions, optimizers look for ways to personalize people’s experience. Here are some tactics for doing that:
Personalize emails:
- Address the recipient by name in emails.
- Segment emails, so your messaging fits the recipient’s stage in the customer journey.
- Align messaging to the user’s previous purchases or behaviors.
- Create unique email sequences for users at key conversion stages, such as onboarding, adoption, and churn risk.
Personalize landing pages:
- Create custom landing pages for different markets or customer segments.
- Add dynamic content to landing pages, so they speak directly to the user.
- Use calls to action (CTAs) that align with the user’s readiness to convert.
- Keep your messaging clear, concise, and compelling.
Personalize search and retargeting:
- Use geolocation to display ads that align with the user’s local conditions, like ski equipment ads in Denver or swimwear ads in Miami.
- Use retargeting to deliver ads that are appropriate for the user’s online behavior and interests.
- Create a natural flow within conversion funnels — messaging and design should be consistent on the ad, landing page, form, and emails so trust levels remain high.
A/B tests offer excellent data for personalization. For example, we have created A/B tests that looked inconclusive initially. When we looked at the impact of the test on mobile visitors, we often find that visitors on an Android device preferred the variation while those coming on an iPhone preferred the control.
This becomes an opportunity to personalize based on device. The Android users will see the variation and the iPhone visitors will see the control. Personalization tools allow this kind of personalization.
Other segments to analyze for personalization opportunities:
- First-time visitors vs. returning visitors
- Current customers
- Visitors who are on your mailing list
- Geographic location (city, state, country)
- Gender (be careful not to stereotype)
- Mobile vs.desktop visitors
- Time since last visit
The advantage of using A/B testing to drive your personalization is that you have the data that tells you what the different visitors want and an easy way to target them when they are on your website.
CRO Strategy #4: Retargeting Campaigns
When people engage with your website but don’t convert, you can continue to engage with them off-site through retargeting ads.
Retargeting delivers targeted ads to users across the web, in apps, and on social media, reminding them of your offer and encouraging them to engage with it further. It can be an effective way to get people to return to an abandoned shopping cart, revisit a product page, or review related content.
Keep in mind, flow is important. You’ll need to tailor a message that matches their previous interaction, so you can create a personalized experience that resonates and reinforces the value of your product.
Here are some tools to set up effective retargeting campaigns:
NOTE: Retargeting places a cookie on the visitor’s browser to identify them when on other websites. This tells the retargeting company to show them your retargeting ad. The use of these “third-party” cookies is being curtailed due to privacy concerns by the major browser manufacturers. Alternatives tracking technologies will need to be put in place.
CRO Strategy #5: UX and UI Optimization
UX (user experience) optimization focuses on creating a seamless and meaningful experience for visitors.
UI (user interface) optimization improves the appearance and usability of the website, page, or app.
Both rely on intuitive design, which aims to build trust by ensuring a page/site feels intuitive and performs as expected. It looks for anything that creates friction and adjusts as needed to create a smooth experience.
A good example is 37signals. They saw a 102.5% boost in Highrise signups after adding a picture of a customer to the page.
To optimize UX and UI, you need to understand how visitors interact with the page or site. For example, are they getting stuck? Can they navigate the page/site easily? Do they stay on the page long enough to read your messaging? (Most users leave a page in 45-50 seconds3.)
For UX and UI optimization, optimizers use tools like these:
- Google Analytics, for web analytics
- Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar or Crazy Egg, for heatmaps and session replays
- Heap Analytics, for retroactive analysis of user behavior
CRO Strategy #6: Friction Points
If a good UX improves trust, friction destroys it. Anything that frustrates, confuses, or slows a visitor can create friction. A visitor comes to you with a reservoir of mental energy. Each mistake or moment of confusion drains that reservoir, increasing the “cognitive load.” For example:
- Unclear messaging or value proposition
- Cluttered web pages
- Too many choices
- Information that doesn’t anticipate their questions
- Hidden pricing
- Convoluted navigation
- Lengthy forms
To improve conversion rates, optimizers remove friction. They seek a page that is well-designed, with clear messaging and CTAs, and good flow. Make it easy to find buttons and fill out forms.
CRO Strategy #7: Page Load Speed
One of the biggest frustrations for visitors is a slow website. When they click, a slow response slows their momentum and decreases their perceived credibility of your business. This is especially true on mobile devices.
- 53% of mobile site visitors will leave a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. (Google Consumer Insights report4)
- Website conversion rates drop by 4.42% with each second of load time. (Portent5)
- 70% of consumers say they’re less likely to buy from a slow website. (Unbounce6)
- A page that loads in 1 second has a conversion rate 3x higher than a site that loads in 5 seconds. (Portent)
Compare these statistics to the average website load time in 20237: 2.5 seconds on a desktop and 8.6 seconds on a mobile device. To remove this friction point, you need to beat the average, reducing your load speed time as much as possible.
Here are a few ways to do that.
- Quality website hosting
- Compress images and deliver properly sized images
- Leverage browser caching
- Minimize plugins
- User Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
- Reducing redirects
- Minifying CSS and JavaScript
We find the reports generated by the free tools at webpagetest.org to be fantastic at diagnosing the causes of slow-loading pages.
CRO Strategy #8: Gathering and Acting on Feedback
However much you may try to improve your user experience, friction points may still exist. The best way to find them is to get real user feedback.
Given the chance, they’ll let you know that your signup forms need fixing or your site navigation is confusing. They can also review your changes and give you direct feedback.
For example, the Dropbox Community gives users a place to get quick answers to their questions, but it also helps the Product team know where and how they can improve. When they changed their estimated time to sync feature with a progress bar, users complained. This feedback told Dropbox that time was a “critical unit of measurement” and that features should help users manage their time.
The Dropbox team now uses the community to prioritize the issues they tackle. You can do the same, using customer feedback to find friction points, provide a better user experience, and improve messaging.
Here are some tactics for gathering user insights:
- Surveys and questionnaires – Typeform or Google Forms
- User testing – UserTesting
- User feedback – Hotjar or GetFeedback
- Social media monitoring – set up alerts for mentions of your brand
- Session recording – FullStory or Mouseflow
- AI-powered feedback analysis – MonkeyLearn
Thank-you page surveys and exit-triggered surveys are among the most effective.
CRO Strategy #9: Security and Trust-Building
Through user feedback, you can identify page elements or experiences that harm trust. But you can also add trust elements to your pages to build trust and improve conversions.
For example, many SaaS companies display awards to quickly communicate their value:
Low-touch SaaS products that have a checkout page on your website can use ecommerce trust badges. Ecommerce company UnderstandQuran added two trust badges to their sign-up page — a money-back guarantee badge and an Apple app store badge — they saw a 32.57% increase in sales over an 11 day period.
Here are some trust signals that improve SaaS conversion rates:
- SSL certificates
- Transparent privacy policies
- Security badges and certificates
- Customer reviews and ratings
- Awards and recognition
Elevate Your CRO Game: Next Steps for Your SaaS Company
There’s no better way to ensure SaaS growth than with CRO for SaaS. Through conversion rate optimization, you can make incremental improvements in your conversion rate at every stage of the customer journey, helping you get and keep your valuable customers.
Need help? At Conversion Sciences, we’re not a standard CRO agency. We use the scientific method to identify and fix the issues causing SaaS revenue leak. Contact us today to talk with our experienced full-service team of Conversion Scientists today.
Citations
- Nielsen, J. (2018, January 6). How long do users stay on web pages? Nielsen Norman Group. https://www.nngroup.com/articles/how-long-do-users-stay-on-web-pages/
- Ensslen, D., Arora, N., Schüler, G., Fiedler, L., Liu, W. W., Robinson, K., & Stein, E. (2021, November 12). The value of getting personalization right-or wrong-is multiplying. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/growth-marketing-and-sales/our-insights/the-value-of-getting-personalization-right-or-wrong-is-multiplying
- Wise, J. (2023, August 23). What is the average time spent on a website in 2024? – EarthWeb. EarthWeb – Independent Technology Research & Coverage. https://earthweb.com/what-is-the-average-time-spent-on-a-website/
- Google. (2016, March). Mobile site load time statistics – Think with Google – Google https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-insights/consumer-trends/mobile-site-load-time-statistics/
- Wiegand, M. (2022, April 20). Site speed is (still) impacting your conversion rate. Portent. https://www.portent.com/blog/analytics/research-site-speed-hurting-everyones-revenue.htm
- Think fast: The page speed report stats & trends for marketers. Unbounce. (2023, April 30). https://unbounce.com/page-speed-report/
- Ellis, C. (2023, August 1). Website load time statistics (2024): Average page load time & bounce rate. Tooltester. https://www.tooltester.com/en/blog/website-loading-time-statistics/
- Confirmation Bias: What It Is and How It’s Hurting Your Website Conversions - August 20, 2024
- The Conversion Optimization Process for High Converting Websites - August 20, 2024
- Two Guys on Your Website: The Surprising Link Between CRO and SEO - June 27, 2024
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