SaaS landing pages have changed a lot over the last 10 years. Fortunately, we’ve said farewell to the days of eye wateringly basic designs, cold copywriting, and generic stock photos of suspiciously attractive people in business attire laughing hysterically over a flipchart of what looks like, just a whole lot of boring numbers.

It is fair to say the internet has progressed a whole lot since then, and so has the number of SaaS (software as a service) companies entering the market. With competition at its highest, the need to ensure your SaaS company is standing out amongst the rest is imperative. And to do this, you need to ensure your marketing is tip-top, with your SaaS landing page optimised to get the best possible conversion rates. What we mean by SaaS conversion rates is more leads signing up to your webinars, more prospects downloading your guide, more visitors signing up for your free trials, and more customers upgrading to premium and paid plans.

In this article, we present the best practices used by market leaders and potential start-ups to achieve high-converting landing pages.

1. Get to know your customer

Before diving on in and creating your landing page, it is important that you first spend a good chunk of time thinking about your target audience and what they’re going to want from a landing page. The following questions are good prompts:

• Who is your audience?
• What is the problem or need your tool addresses?
• How is your value proposition unique vs. the competition?
• What part of the product or service are you going to visually communicate?
• If it’s a SaaS app or a tool, what’s the most important part of the product to showcase?
• What are the key frictions that usually exist for the average visitor? Think about all of the reasons that a user might not convert

A great way to find the answers to many of these questions is to run customer surveys and to read customer reviews. Forums like Reddit and Quora and review sites like Capterra and G2 are great sources for customer feedback that can really help inform your landing page strategy. Sieve through your own reviews, as well as your competitors’, and look for recurring themes. Get a feel for how customers are describing the value of your product and replicate this same sentiment on your landing pages.

The better you understand the needs and wants of your target audience, the more effective you’ll be at convincing them to actually take the desired action, whether that’s buying now, scheduling a demo, or handing over their precious contact info for a custom quote.

2. Compelling copy

Here’s a checklist you should consider when writing the copy for your SaaS landing page:

• Your copy must point to one call-to-action. For instance, if the page is about downloading your latest whitepaper, this is not the place to talk about anything outside of what might make someone download it.
• All your copy supports (and enhances) your value proposition.
• You’re speaking to your customers and not at them.

• Your copy is written in your customer’s tone and voice (a good way to get to grips with this is by reading customer reviews in order to pull words, expressions, and sentence cadence)
• Your tone is personal and friendly, while still staying on brand.
• The fonts you use are easy to read.
• The attention of your copy isn’t obscured by images and other visual elements.

3. Making your landing page SEO-friendly

If you want your target audience to find your landing page organically, you’ll want to ensure good SEO practices are the cornerstone of your landing page building process. This should include:

• Researching long-tail keywords to use for your landing page.
• Making sure to include your keywords in your landing page’s title, headers, URL path, and content.
• Include alt tags for your images.

4. Social proof pays off with SaaS customers

A great way to win trust on SaaS landing pages is with customer testimonials. With this, you need to ensure your testimonial copy matches the key message on the landing page. For example, if your landing page is designed to get you to convert to a free trial, the customer testimonial should sell the message to the visitor on how easy your product is to use, how it’s helped improve their lives, and in what ways.

In order to elevate social proof further, you’ll also want to consider using case studies. Case studies are the elite of the social proof world. They take the emotional pull of testimonials but add a whole lot more through storytelling. If a visitor is struggling to convert, a well-timed case study can give them the little nudge they need.

When creating your SaaS landing pages, you should experiment with different types of social proof, including testimonials, ratings and reviews, case studies, media and PR mentions, certifications, awards, partner logos, and customer logos.

5. Ensure your CTA is actionable and consise

The CTA (call-to-action) is the offer and promise of your page. It’s what everything on your page is leading to, and as such, it’s vital you make it as clear and simple as possible, avoiding using multiple or mixed messages. You must have a good idea of the action you want visitors to your site to take, whether that’s a sign-up, getting a quote, or starting a free trial. Once you know that, it’ll be far easier to know how to make your CTA.

Ensure you consider the following points when creating your SaaS landing page:

• Your CTA should only ask for one thing of your potential customer (for example, “Download the report,” “Register for the Webinar,” “Start Your Free Trial.”)
• Your CTA is directly relevant to the value proposition and the copy outlined on your page.
• Your CTA stands out in contrast from all the other elements of the page.

6. Powerful and show-stopping design

Well-designed and aesthetically pleasing landing pages are a must for any SaaS business, playing a major role in increasing conversions. The most successful landing pages are those that incorporate engaging content; from powerful photography, custom illustrations, promotional videos and new graphic styles.

Of the design elements, your hero image is perhaps one of the most important elements on the landing page because it’s the very first thing most visitors notice. The human brain processes images almost 60,000 times faster than words. As the old adage goes, “a picture speaks a thousand words” and your prospects are likely to notice an image before they read your copy.

Your hero image should support your value proposition and help your potential customers connect with your message. You should select an image that is both authentic and relatable. Your landing page visitors should be able to relate to the image by either seeing themselves in it or seeing someone they aspire to be like.

What’s important to note is these design features should not jeopardise positive user experience. Good design and good user functionality should go hand-in-hand. If you’re in need of some design inspiration for your next project, SaaSLandingPage is a great website.

7. Review and refresh

Now you should be at the stage where your SaaS page is all published and ready to convert customers. Unfortunately, this isn’t where the work stops though. In order to get the best results and conversion rates, you need to be continuously analysing visitor behaviour. By assessing and reviewing how your landing page is performing, you can uncover what aspects are working well, and which areas aren’t living up to its full potential.

A good way of investigating how visitors behave on your landing page is to use heat mapping tools, such as Hotjar and Decibel. These handy websites allow you to find answers to questions such as where visitors are first heading when they get to your page, what they’re clicking on and what they’re scrolling past. The answers to these questions will tell the story of your visitors’ experience, giving you great insight into what’s working well and what needs improvement.

Running A/B tests are also a great way to assess what aspects of a landing page works best. By experimenting with different copy, layout and design, and CTA’s, you can see what resonates best with your target audience and adapt accordingly.

There we have it. Our guide to optimising your SaaS landing pages in order to consistently increase conversions. The more you stick to these pointers while continuously reviewing and re-tweaking, the better results you will see.

For more help and guidance on growing your SaaS business through powerful marketing, get in touch with the HdE team today.