What It Takes to Build a Credible SaaS Website Your Visitors Can Trust

Every SaaS business wants to increase their sales, revenue and customer loyalty (I’m betting you do, too).

The first path companies take to achieve these goals is offering promotions and advertising their brand. However, there’s one less common way that not many SaaS owners take into account — building a trustworthy website.

The math is pretty simple: credibility leads to money. Users that trust the information on a given website are more likely to become paying customers. You don’t buy from someone you don’t trust, do you?

Unless you’re a name brand SaaS company such as Salesforce or Oracle, why should prospects trust you immediately they land on your site? At the same time, you don’t need to wait to become a huge player on the market to earn credibility.

In this article, we will cover a few simple yet effective tricks you can implement to immediately build user trust and, as a result, generate more deals.

1. Use a custom domain name

This might be an obvious one, but avoid using free subdomains like “yourcompany.wordpress.com” or “yourcompany.webflow.com.” A custom domain name costs as little as a few dollars per year.

Show your prospects that you care enough about your business brand and how it appears to them to invest in a unique URL.

2. Show how many customers you’ve helped

Let prospects know that you have already successfully served many people before them.

This small step will give new website visitors a little more confidence in your services. The wise step here is not just saying ‘We’ve served x number of customers.’ Instead, use powerful language. Explain your core business value and how other customers have benefited from it.

For instance, Intercom doesn’t say that 30,000 businesses have purchased their messaging suite. Intercom says that more than 30,000 of the world’s most successful companies trust them with a very precious thing — the future of their businesses.

3. Provide social proof with client and partner logos

The next step you can take is to use client and partner logos to show who your allies are (be sure to first get their permission, of course). Although people will always listen to large and well-known brands, even unknown businesses can make an impression:

Eventually, knowing you’re good enough to work with partners convinces prospects you’re good enough to work with them, too. For example, here’s how CData showcases its industry partners on the separate website page:

4. Highlight press mentions

Saying that you’re the best, that’s one thing. But if Inc, Foundr or Entrepreneur say that you’re the best, that’s a whole new ballgame. To establish a strong reputation, exhibit mentions of your company in the press.

This shows that you are recognized enough to receive the hard-to-get attention of journalists. Try to get featured on as many authoritative sites as possible. You can then display the logos in one of two common ways.

Either show the media logos, like Chanty Team Chat, does in the example below, or include the feature alongside the logo.

5. Don’t hesitate to show your age

Showing years of experience inspires confidence in prospects since you’re saying that you are an expert in your business niche.

Also, it signals that they’ve been trusted by thousands of customers and have a leg up on rivals. Eddie Bauer’s slogan prominently features their 90+ years of experience.

6. Show your awards

Winning a major award for your SaaS company is great, but you can leverage niche awards and special certificates while waiting for an impressive trophy. Don’t hesitate to showcase awards which your company has earned in the past.

You may choose to put these accolades at the center of your homepage or opt for a less prominent position like BigCommerce does in the example below. This may give prospects some assurance that you are a reliable company to do business with.

7. Prove that your SaaS is secure

The other step in building a trustworthy website is letting prospects know that your web resource is secure. Start with getting an SSL certificate. That’s why Google’s website (which has SSL) appears on browsers as partially green:

When prospects see the lock symbol on your website address bar, they know that their personal data is safe. If the website utilizes a secure connection, that is a good indicator of its credibility.

Some popular SaaS sites don’t need to have any other security message on their homepage because everyone knows their great reputation. Smaller SaaS companies may need to mention this aspect on their website. The key here is to remember that the location of trust marks is pretty important. Moving them to lead capture fields will help instill even more confidence in prospects who are revealing sensitive information.

Moving forward, it is crucial for your SaaS website to feature privacy policy in plain sight. What’s more, having a newsletter sign-up form, you should put your privacy policy link next to it.

Why?

Because if you collect any data from your prospect (you probably do), you should provide them with a privacy policy so that the visitor knows exactly how their personal data is being used and stored.

8. Inject social proof heavily

Social proof is crucial when looking to build brand trust and loyalty among your prospects. Also, it effectively influences prospects’ behavior when it comes to closing deals. Two-thirds of software buyers say that reviews significantly impact their purchase decisions. Let’s walk through a few sure-fire methods of making your SaaS website more credible with the help of social proof.

You can start from featuring your existing clients as testimonials. Just include a few their short quotes on your website with an added name and photo. Try to keep testimonials personal and relevant. In other words, your clients’ feedback should resonate to the prospective user’s goals and needs.

Social proof in the form of case studies promotes a feeling of confidence in the prospects even stronger than testimonials do. Having proof that your software has already worked for others eliminates any hesitation before a purchase. A great way of building an emotional connection with a prospect is adding video alongside a to case studies.

Another ingeniously simple, yet super effective type of social proof is by launching various on-site notifications with a tool such as Proof. With on-site notifications, you can inform your website visitors about what other users have done in the past (signed up, upgraded to a higher plan, requested a demo, etc.) and show how many people are currently viewing the page or entire site in real-time.

9. Keep your website clean and professional

People judge a book by the cover. Cheesy and amateurish design, blinking banners, endless pop-ups, website copy full of ‘hype’ — all these nullify your sales attempts, no matter how great they may be.

Does your site look like a Christmas tree? Change it ASAP.

Your website is what forms the first impression of your SaaS business. Design can make or break a sale, and, generally speaking, even your company.

Is your homepage designed to build trust among prospects and effectively convert them into paying clients?

Let’s walk through a few elements of a trustworthy SaaS website design.

First, immediately inform and educate users about who you are and how your product will benefit them. The core mission of your homepage is to help your prospects find certain information on your site. So, deliver a seamless user experience on your homepage every time.

Second off, don’t create an eccentric website design in an attempt to draw more attention. Your visitors are used to seeing a few common elements on every SaaS website. Take a look at some of them and find some similarities: a logo on the left, an opt-in, a couple of sentences about what the product does, a menu bar on the top, and more. The same elements in more or less the same places. So, build a story around the ‘classic’ design that will help your SaaS business build trust among prospects.

And last but not least, limit stock photos. Okay, sometimes they are a necessary evil. Nevertheless, try to avoid images of over-enthusiastic people with fake smiles.

10. Engage with prospects in your About Us page

If possible, use pictures of real people from your company instead of corporate-style templates. The About Us page is probably the second top content asset that establishes your website’s credibility. By telling prospects who you are, you’re connecting to them on an emotional level. This is critical in the SaaS world, where you’re actually selling a long-term relationship rather than software.

The faces of team-members behind the company breed familiarity and are more appealing to prospective clients. The truth is that people don’t trust anonymous websites. People want to look you in the eye. Because if you don’t show your face, maybe you’re also hiding something else? You can even go the extra mile here and even add social media credentials to your key staff.

11. Display contact numbers openly and adopt live chat

Make it easy for any website visitor to establish contact with you whenever they want. Prospective clients may have questions they want you to answer before making a purchasing decision, especially when it comes to choosing the right software.

Displaying full contact details is one of the top factors users look for on a SaaS website. Prospective buyers want to know who is behind the software, where the business is based and how to contact the vendor. As a result, just an email address isn’t enough anymore. In addition to email, display your company name, business address, and phone number.

To improve communication with prospects, make use of live chat software. Live chat has become popular on websites for many reasons: it’s easy to use, it provides users with an instant form of communication without ‘wait on the line’ situations. Overall, this functionality makes users feel comfortable with asking for help.

Asana’s live chat

11. Resist the urge to overdo it

Don’t overcrowd your SaaS website with credibility elements. Less is more.

If you scream ‘Please trust me! I’m the most trustworthy person in the world!’, it may have an opposite effect. Prospects will get suspicious, even if initially felt positive about your company.

The key here is to remember that different people are affected by different things. This is one of the reasons why it’s crucial to have a strong understanding of your target audience. You should learn what impresses your prospects and check if you have any of these assets.

Wrapping up

If your prospective customers don’t trust your product and your brand, they simply won’t turn into paying clients. Luckily, you can have a huge impact on how credible you SaaS business appears to be.

There are many important trust elements that should be present on your website and improve your credibility as a software vendor. We have walked through some excellent methods above. Feel free to steal and adopt any of them. But know one thing: demonstrate your reliability, follow through on your promises. Be exact in your claims and avoid misleading information.

By being honest and accurate, you can quickly increase your prospects’ confidence in your SaaS business, increase user engagement and close more deals.

Have you tried any of the above-mentioned methods for your website? Have these experiments been successful? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Julia Samoilenko is a marketing manager at Chanty — a simple AI-powered team chat. This powerful and free Slack alternative is aimed to increase team productivity and improve communication at work. With five years of experience in digital marketing, Julia is responsible for Chanty’s online social media presence and public relations. Feel free to connect with Julia on LinkedIn.