As an avid Reddit user (never disclosing my accounts) who’s very active in subs related to design and SaaS, I’ve been seeing a surge in “roast my landing page” posts seeking design critique.
Many of them are genuine advice, but even more were basic AI-generated sloppy audits and even more than outright bad advice.
Because, not everyone there is a SaaS designer who has the time to help people.
So I stepped up, and now I’ll give the same repeated advice here that I gave there in my comments.
And yes, I actually reviewed that many designs.
Let’s dive into it!
Invest in better copy
You can have the fanciest design and animations possible, but that means nothing if the website copy is trash.
You will not convert traffic into users/sales.
A prospect must understand what your business does as clearly as possible and as soon as possible.
Don’t use gargantuous words that can only be understood by literature grads — because your target is probably not them.
Keep it simple, silly.
Choose better color schemes
A lot of SaaS websites are built by solo developers with no design background, and it shows in the use of color.
Color possesses the power to make or break your brand’s perception.
Don’t use red on top of green or mix and match 6 random colors from a palette you got online.
You need to be very wary of the ratio in which you use your colors and how they complement each other.
A common usage pattern, which even I swear by, is 50:30:10:10.
- 50 being the base color of your site, either white or black
- 30 being your brand’s color and its shades
- the remaining 10 each being the secondary and tertiary colors
Avoid using AI-generated images
AI makes everything quick and easy and you also get to save thousands of dollars by not hiring people, but people can tell.
The public perception of AI is not the most positive either.
It just shows people that your brand doesn’t care much about quality and rather wants to ship quick but below-average results.
Also, image prompting is not easy.
Most AI images look odd and require remaining polish, which is avoided and hampers the site’s overall quality.
No information architecture a.k.a storytelling
This is key.
Infact, this is the second most important factor behind a high converting landing page (after the main product, obviously).
There are numerous sale-focused IAs available online that are proven to convert.
Just follow one that suits your brand the best and then play around with the contents of sections a bit for A/B testing.
The results will vary, and there is no guarantee of outcome — but anything is better than a messy landing page with random sections that serve no purpose but are added for the sake of it.
Just follow one design style, please
Early-stage SaaS are repeat offenders of this.
And I’m not saying this from a designer’s POV either, it looks very untidy in general.
Skeuomorphed sites should not have flat 2d illustrations on it, and neither should minimal text-heavy websites have more than 4 typefaces at once.
The current trend is of a Linear-esque design style, a fairly detailed website that is not too much in your face with interactions.
Observe how they do it and fix the mistakes on your site as well.
Mention benefits early on
Sites with high bounce rates generally have users leave within the first 10 seconds.
That’s quick, but not in a good way.
And let’s be real here, users don’t even care about your SaaS. They just want their needs met.
Give them what they want quickly, and a good way of doing it is by adding the “features” or “what we do” section of your landing page right below the first fold/hero section.
You can also obviously add social proofs like a ticker of clientele or analytics about your SaaS ahead of it.
Just don’t make them scroll too far down.
Avoid multiple CTAs in hero section
Having just 1 big button with a clear CTA is the way forward.
Unless you specifically need to have multiple actions, just avoid it.
Multiple buttons lead to decision paralysis and dilute visual hierarchy which will affect conversion/signup rates.
Even for your top navigation bar, it is preferable to use dropdowns or links instead of another button.
A bonus — don’t use those ghost/outline style of buttons; they are not legible.
Build social proof with testimonials
People trust other people.
People are likely to buy from you if other people back your claims.
So how do you show your SaaS’s legitimacy ? you add testimonials from your customers.
Depending on the nature of your SaaS, if it is B2B then testimonials and if it is DTC then reviews.
Another useful but subtle social proof is a ticker, that can be added right below the hero section.
PS — don’t use fake testimonials, it will drive people away and come off as scammy.
Load quicker, please
Neither is making complex loading animations a good experience, nor is waiting for them to finish.
So what if everyone collectively agreed to just, not do it ?
Rant over, but some serious pointers here..
- use webp format to load images quicker
- use a CDN
- cut out excess code
- load critical scripts early
There are many more, but you get what I mean.
Footers are useful too
Often overlooked, rarely utilised and mostly underrated.
Footers are amazing for your landing page’s SEO, backlink generation and navigation.
Because sometimes you have to bottom your way to the top, from that I mean users may want to go back up but without scrolling and a footer can help with it :p
Internal links help with site crawlers, and you can always sneak in a final CTA somewhere inside.
Remember, that just making a landing page once isn’t enough.
You need to constantly iterate on it, track all data, and make better decisions to fit your SaaS’s goals.
What I share above are a bunch of best practices you can adapt to avoid committing mistakes that will hamper your users’ experience.
Hi there 👋🏻 I’m Sharanya — an independent UI & Web designer writing about design and documenting his journey.
Currently booking projects — let’s chat.
Check my design templates over here.
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I Reviewed 250+ SaaS Landing Pages— Avoid These 10 Common Design Mistakes was originally published in UX Planet on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.