Step-by-Step Blueprint: How to Create SaaS Website That Converts

The SaaS industry has been booming for over a decade and doesn't seem to be slowing down. Cloud-based software helps businesses and individuals automate workflows and run better ad campaigns.

Many brands turn to SaaS tools to help with the multiple elements of running a business.

If you work with other businesses, you need to consider everything needed to improve B2B SaaS onboarding.

Meanwhile, if you work in B2C, you need to ensure your website or app can help people reach their goals quickly.

Competition is fierce, so you need to create a product that converts.

So many brands claim to have great tools, but only a few have sites that will keep customers returning for years.

What are all the steps involved with SaaS application development?

What should you consider before you begin to build a SaaS product?

If you're a first time SaaS business entrepreneur, these questions could be looming in your mind. SaaS companies who are successful consider many details before designing a SaaS website or mobile app and we want you to be aware of these considerations.

In the article, we will show you how to create a SaaS site to showcase your product, distinguish you from the competition, and convince users you're the solution they're looking for.  

So, we've got one question. Do you want to build a website that other cloud-based SaaS applications envy?

If so, keep reading because you'll know how to do so by the end of our post. Follow this guide to developing SaaS applications and quickly build a minimal viable product you can test in your niche.

Key takeaways

• The Software as a services applications business model
• SaaS compared to traditional sofftware
• What to consider for first time SaaS app development
• How to develop a SaaS application that stands out in a saturated market
• Types of SaaS code stacks to choose as you build your first SaaS website
• How to ensure a smooth software development Process
• Tools for the software development project
• How to make your software easy to find with SEO
• How to quickly develop a minimum viable product
• What to do after launching your website for SaaS products

What is the SaaS business model?

Do you want to build SaaS products? You need to understand how the business model works first.

SaaS stands for software as a service. It is a popular software delivery model which has fundamentally uprooted traditional software ownership transforming it into a subscription-based service. This model hinges on providing software applications over the internet, allowing users to access and utilize software through a web browser without needing installation or maintenance on their local computers. Compared to traditional software it is more cost-effective for users.

To contextualize a bit more, popular SaaS software you probably know or use includes:

• Canva
• Zoom
• Google workspace

Central to the SaaS model is cloud-based applications, where the software and its associated data are hosted on remote servers, managed and maintained by the SaaS provider.

An advantage of Saas is its subscription-based pricing structure. Instead of a large upfront cost typically associated with purchasing software licenses, SaaS users pay a recurring fee, usually monthly or annually, to access the service. This pricing strategy makes the software more accessible to a broader range of businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, but also provides a predictable revenue stream for the software providers.

Since the software is hosted centrally, the provider can roll out updates and upgrades without requiring user intervention, ensuring all customers can access the latest features and security updates. The SaaS model also offers scalability and flexibility, allowing customers to easily adjust their subscription levels based on their current needs, a particularly advantageous feature for growing companies.

Wat are the advantages of SaaS app development and the SaaS model?

All the above factors make SaaS a viable and attractive business model. Your business can offer cloud-based services which appeal to wider audiences and allows all users to subscribe based on their needs and price points.  

Sounds like a winner! But there's much to consider before you build and launch your product. We are outlining the stages you should follow to make software that will attract clients.

What you need to consider during SaaS product development

You have an idea, now what? It's important to think it through before creating a SaaS site. Before you begin, there are some things you need to consider.

Your site must:

• Look professional
• Explain your value proposition tools and how to use them
• Include images of your user interface
• Include trials, demos, or contact sales buttons

Above, we mentioned the core principles of a good SaaS site. Considering these, we will guide you through the tools to use to build your a fast website and app users can access from anywhere.

Understanding your audience before you build a SaaS platform

Everything in business revolves around your customers. So, the first step to building a successful SaaS app or website is knowing your potential customers. You need to be able to answer the questions:

• Who are they?
• What do they want?
• How do they want it?

Using the information gathered from those three seemingly simple questions will help you design a customer-centric interface. It will guide you in creating engaging content that attracts them. And it will enable you to include the right features in your product while you ensure website and mobile navigation best practices for clear hierarchy.

If you need guidance at this step, refer to tools like Google Trends, Survey Monkey, or Quora. These sites can give you a wealth of information or tools to gather data. All of these will help you understand your target market better which is essential as you create a SaaS application.

The SaaS market is oversaturated, so what makes you different?

Now that you understand your audience, you must communicate what makes you different. Why should people spend money on your SaaS product instead of Canva, SEMrush, or WIX?

Answer the following questions to define what sets you apart fully:

• What unique problem does your product solve?
• How will your solution benefit customers in ways other SaaS products cannot?
• Does it provide something no other platform does? What is it?

You will then use this information to create your value proposition. A great value proposition will effectively attract the customers you want to work with.

It will help you market your cloud-based web applications with ease and see if people want your app.

The best way to check before building is with email.

You can use specific B2B SaaS emails with strategic goals to test your idea and guide users to understanding your product.

Once you have verified your idea, you can begin the first stages of the development process.

The SaaS development process

https://images.surferseo.art/9bc8ddb1-bb06-4fb3-af1e-527630f8ee49.png

You need to consider the technical aspects of your website before you start to visualize it. During this stage, you must consider three crucial aspects of building a SaaS site. Let's cover the tools you'll need to get your product up and running quickly. We aren't referring to email marketing software, customer relationship management software or project management tools. We are going past this because as a business owner you are probably aware of these B2B SaaS tools available on the market.

Check speed before you focus on SaaS website design

Many startups need to include more cutting-edge features. These can increase the flashy new appeal of your product. However, if you focus too much on form rather than functionality, your users will suffer usability issues.

As you sell software as a service, the last thing you want people to use SaaS solutions you provide and abandon them due to complex functionality.

In this beginning stage don't worry about customization options too much. Instead, shift your focus towards content and your brand. Keeping it simple will future-proof your site because you can make changes over time. It will make your site easy to update, and you can remove or add features later. It will be easier than loading your app with useless features that customers may not even want.

Before you start building out your product, prototype the main pages and functions you need for the product to function. Then, spend time testing it on multiple devices. You want to check that it's responsive on mobile devices and fast to load anywhere worldwide.

Site loading speeds are an essential SEO element. Google will penalize your website if it is slow to load. Your mobile site must load within three seconds, or over half the customers who click on your website will leave and likely never return.

You can use the following resources to check your website speed before making your product more stylish.

• Google Page Speed Insights
• GT Metrix

You can gather data from your initial prototype and make improvements while adding core features without slowing down your product.

Choose the right platform

As we write this, over half the websites on the World Wide Web are created with WordPress. However, there are other options when creating a SaaS site. Many people hate WordPress, and it's understandable. There are so many plugins, and multiple things could go wrong. So which platform is best for your SaaS project?

Here are a few other options to consider before building your website's design.

• Webflow
• Six Studio
• Squarespace
• Weekly
• Hubspot

Using any of the tools above will allow you to add more features and functionality later. However, choosing the right platform for your SaaS site is essential for future developments.

We recommend low-code tools because SaaS products must implement new developments swiftly to respond to customer needs. You can use the software mentioned above to create content without code. Using a platform like Webflow will increase efficiency and productivity because you won't need a developer for every new addition to your website. SaaS developers can be costly which usually mean inaccessibility for new business owners in the SaaS software development phase.

Make your B2B SaaS site widely accessible

During SaaS platform development many brands overlook accessibility. Nearly 2 billion people are living with a disability in today's. If you pay attention to these users, you considerably increase the number of people you can reach with your service. 90% of businesses create websites that are inaccessible to these users. Just considering how a blind or deaf person may interact with your site and creating an application code allowing them to read or use voice could win you their business among SaaS providers in today's market.

As your business grows, you will thank yourself for including accessibility features. If you have an inaccessible site, you alienate users and could be sued. In America, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires businesses to make their services accessible to people living with disabilities.

So how can you do this?

Ensure you include alt text on any images you upload to your website. Accessibility could include captions and transcripts for videos. Include a visible search bar that is optimized for voice search.

Don't host your website on the builder's website.

If you opt for any of the website builders mentioned above, you will soon find these businesses also offer website hosting. However, it's best to host your site through a different provider. Hosting with a different provider will increase your users' security. If your platform site has a data breach, your data is safely stored in another host's server.

Once you have considered and planned for all these steps, you can move on to the fun part - designing your site.

Visualizing and designing your SaaS solution

You should always provide function first and then focus on design. If people can't use your site, it doesn't matter how pretty it is.

When designing your website, you can think about the following:

• Intuitive navigation
• Well-placed CTA buttons
• Mobile Responsiveness
• Site Speed

One of many excellent SaaS examples that's simple to use and prevents confusion is Calendly. Their homepage looks professional and organized, using a clear visual hierarchy.

Optimize User flow

By now, you've probably got an idea, or at least a rough sketch, of how your website should look. But you must continue with the buttons and navigation. You need to employ design thinking. Your customer should be at the forefront of all design choices, starting with their journey on your website.

Use a website like Webflow to create a user flow diagram. The diagram will show what a visitor experiences from the time they land on your page until they exit. You can include micro aspects in the flow to understand at a granular level how people will use your website.

To create a user flow, you need to focus on:

• Visitor needs
• Problems they want to be solved
• The necessary design features for them to learn about your product
• Concerns they may have that need to be addressed

Make sure you follow the flow yourself as you create the flow. When you do, you can track every possible outcome a user could have on your website.

Once you complete this and deploy your product, you will likely need to audit your product.

We cannot stress the importance of a web or app design audit for improving user flow enough because it will help you continually iterate and improve your product.

Leaders in the industry consider best practices to overcome user issues with navigation in a SaaS website or app.

Build a SaaS app that makes waves in the SaaS industry.

Take your time with your design to get a product to market faster. Don't fall into the "fast first, then quality" trap because it will hurt your brand's image. That will affect your long-term success, counterintuitive to your goals.

Most websites will include a simple image of the product in the hero section, usually on the right. To the left, they include the value proposition and a CTA. It's the industry norm, but you don't want to be normal, right? You want to stand out so people instantly know they will work with you.

So, design a website showcasing your brand's values and image. Your site should communicate to your customers who you are and why you exist.

At this point, you have:

• Chosen a website platform
• Chosen separate hosting
• Considered how to make your website fast
• Designed a sketch of basic visual elements
• Optimized user flow

Now, you must consider which technologies you will use to develop your site. We are referring to a technology stack.

What is a technology stack, and why is it important in SAAS development?

A technology stack is the combination of programming languages you will use across your site. They provide frameworks as you turn build a SaaS website from scratch and make your dream a realist.

Choose your technology stack wisely, as it will affect your website moving forward.  It could mean the difference in needing to outsource SaaS development tasks or learning basic coding skills.

The most common technology stacks for SaaS are:

• LAMP
• MEAN
• Ruby on Rails
• Django

Below, we briefly describe what each is. We recommend you research each more because describing each in detail would merit its blog post.

LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP)

LAMP is a widely used stack for web server deployment, with each component representing a layer in the stack.

Linux serves as the operating system, Apache as the web server, MySQL as the database management system, and PHP (or sometimes Perl or Python) as the scripting language.

This combination is known for its robustness, flexibility, and open-source nature, making it a popular choice for developing and hosting dynamic websites and applications.

MEAN (MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, NodeJS)

MEAN is a modern, full-stack JavaScript solution for building fast and scalable.

It consists of MongoDB, a NoSQL database for flexible, JSON-like data storage; ExpressJS, a backend framework; AngularJS, a frontend framework developed by Google; and NodeJS, a platform for building efficient network applications.

This stack is celebrated for its efficiency, unified use of JavaScript across all layers, and streamlined development process.

Ruby on Rails

Ruby on Rails, often simply referred to as Rails, is an open-source framework written in Ruby.

It emphasizes convention over configuration (CoC) and the DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) principle, making creating complex with less code fast and easy.

Rails is known for its elegant syntax, a rich set of features for rapid development, and a strong focus on testing and good software engineering practices.

Django (Python)

Django is a high-level Python web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design. It follows the "batteries-included" philosophy, providing an all-encompassing experience with built-in features for most common web development tasks.

Django is particularly known for its robust security features, scalability, and versatile ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) system, making it suitable for building sophisticated data-driven websites.

After you have chosen your stacks, you can move on to developing your site.

The SaaS development phase

In the development phase, you implement your SaaS product's relevant features and functionality.

You must consider how paying customers will access your site, how to manage their profile and billing, and reporting and analytics.

You may also consider whether or not customers will integrate your SaaS product with others. If so, how will they do it?

Considering all the options above, you can initiate the design handoff stage, where your developers receive your plans and begin working on your website.

As developers create your website and prepare it for deployment, you should focus on search engine optimization.

SEO for your SaaS applications and website

For a successful website, you need an SEO plan. SEO will help users find your products and services without using paid traffic.

Here are the best practices for SEO research. It all revolves around keywords and search intent. Keywords are the phrases users type into a search engine before receiving results. Intent refers to what customers expect when they are searching for a keyword.

There are three types of intent:

• Navigational (people want something specific)
• Transactional (people want to buy)
• Informational (people want to learn)

Once you identify the intent for each page of your website, you can then look for keywords to use.

For example, this blog post is informational. You read it to learn something.

When you decide to hire us for design help, you will look for our website Tenscope. You could search our brand name on Google, which would be navigational.

Or, you could look for "the best online web design agency" and see Tenscope. You must look for our website directly, so your search will be transactional.

The next steps are to:

1. Use a keyword research tool like Google Search console
2. Check keyword search volume
3. Search for related keywords
4. Include these keywords on each webpage

You will need to use the keywords you find for a specific page in the meta titles, meta descriptions, and headings. Next, plan how each page will link to another, as it's important for SEO. Finally, optimize the images you put on your website by compressing them.

Create Content with best SEO Practices

Everythign above combined will boost your site's search rankings and help more people find your business.  But, you still need to create content to be found. You can't launch a website and not release content. Doing so will lead to a stagnant site you will not see a return on investment.

Now, here comes the fun part.

Your SaaS website's launch

After you have optimized your website pages and developers have created and tested them, it's time to launch your website. You will need to ensure everything is functional before launch.

Here are some steps to take:

• Test your website and all its functions on multiple devices
• Devise a marketing plan to promote your product and generate leads
• Offer demos or trial periods to attract people
• Check your website's performance using analytics tools like Google Analytics
• Continuously improve your product

Congratulations! Your website is ready, and you can be sure it's a success because of the hard work you've put into it so far.

You only need to market and iterate with time to see growth now.

Summary

In conclusion, creating a successful software as a service website involves understanding the SaaS model, defining your target audience, developing a well-structured website, selecting the right technology stack, designing an engaging UI/UX, and implementing effective marketing strategies. By following the step-by-step blueprint outlined in this blog post, you'll be well on your way to building a SaaS site that attracts and converts users into loyal customers.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I create a SaaS site?

Choose a simple, clean layout that is easy to read and navigate, optimize for both desktop and mobile devices, use high-quality images and videos to showcase your product and services, and include clear calls to action to encourage visitors to take action.

‍

How much does it cost to develop a SaaS site?

The average cost to develop a cloud-based erp ranges from $50K to $300K, depending on the complexity of the product.

‍

How do I set up SaaS?

To set up SaaS, confirm your idea's viability through market analysis, develop a business plan and define requirements, select a technology stack, assemble a development team, and build an MVP. Finally, perform after-launch maintenance to ensure success.

‍

How much does it cost to create SaaS?

The development costs for SaaS products generally range between $50K and $300K, depending on the complexity of the product.

‍

What are the key components of a SaaS product?

Cloud hosting, subscription-based pricing, and regular updates are key components of a SaaS product necessary for successful application development.