‍Are you looking to start a SaaS website in 2022? Well, it could be a wise move, since the value of the SaaS market is projected to exceed $700 billion in just a few years. What’s more, 99% of businesses currently use at least one SaaS company, so it’s a rapidly growing area that could offer ample revenue potential.

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If you want to unlock this potential, you need to have a clear strategy and a strong growth plan in place, and creating a professional and effective website is a great place to start. 

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Here’s all you need to know about how to start and grow a SaaS website in 2022.

What’s needed to grow a SaaS website?

A rock-solid foundation 

When starting a SaaS website, or any website for that matter, you need a solid foundation. Every business needs a great website as it's the online hub for attracting customers, building credibility and increasing visibility. By investing in solid foundations that will endure through all the changes and uncertainties of the years to come, you can help ensure your success. 

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You should focus on the following areas of your website:

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• Strong infrastructure and an emphasis on security: A SaaS website can’t succeed if it’s not secure. Security is something that everyone needs to pay attention to at the moment, and it needs to be an ongoing part of how you do business. You can’t afford to overlook the importance of security, so make it a major priority from the outset: invest in antivirus protection, keep your passwords secure, and ensure your software is always kept up-to-date. 

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• A solid user experience: User experience is key to success within any business, but it’s even more important for SaaS. Successful SaaS companies know that every action they take is an opportunity to delight customers. They also know that when something goes wrong, there’s a chance to learn and improve. Features such as live chat are a great way of upgrading your customer service online, while ensuring your website’s design is responsive, engaging and easy to navigate will generate a seamless UX for your customers. 

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• High-quality hosting: As a SaaS business, you need a reliable, high-performance hosting solution that will ensure optimal performance and maximum availability. Investing in SaaS hosting will also make it easier for you to grow at scale, since you’ll be able to add resources on-demand as your business expands. With a scalable platform that is easy to manage, secure, and migrates your SaaS applications seamlessly, you can focus on growing your business and let your hosting provider worry about performance or security concerns.

A culture of innovation and experimentation

One of the best things you can do to prepare your SaaS website for the future is to create a culture of innovation and experimentation. By fostering a culture that embraces new ideas, new concepts, and new ways of doing things, you can help make sure that your company is always improving. A successful culture of innovation and experimentation has three major elements: 

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• A willingness to experiment: Successful experimentation requires a willingness to try new ideas and see what works. This is something that everyone in the company needs to embrace. Discover what works well and what for your SaaS customers and you’ll make faster progress than sticking to the safer options! If it works, great. If it doesn’t, figure out why and learn from it. A reluctance to experiment now and again will only slow down your growth potential.  

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• A willingness to fail: The only way to know what works and what doesn’t is to try things out and see what happens. While you want to make sure you don’t throw caution to the wind and make silly mistakes, you also need to be willing to fail. When you’re just starting your SaaS website, don’t worry if not everything comes off the first time, simply use it as a learning curve and continue to improve your site.

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• A willingness to learn from your mistakes: As long as you don’t learn from your mistakes, you’re doomed to repeat them. When something goes wrong, you need to make sure you understand why it happened so you don’t make the same mistake again. Perhaps your site is hard to navigate or you’re getting poor feedback about loading times; whatever your mistake is, use it as an opportunity to improve.

A consideration of AI and machine learning capabilities

There’s no telling exactly how SaaS will progress, but one thing we do know for sure is that it will introduce a lot of new technologies. One of the biggest and most significant technological changes we’ll see over the next decade will be the growth of AI and machine learning capabilities. As computing power continues to grow and costs continue to drop, AI and machine learning systems will become more and more affordable for businesses. 

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You can prepare for the AI ‘boom’ by setting aside funds to invest in these technologies. You don’t have to go all-in and pour millions into AI research, but you do need to make sure you have the funding to take advantage of new technologies when they become available. This is a good way of keeping your site relevant and keeping up with your competition in the future.

Greater transparency and control

Other important aspects are transparency, control, and digital privacy. You can help set your SaaS website up for success in 2022 by putting these concepts at the forefront of your business strategy. Let users know exactly what you’re doing with their data. Open up your algorithms to users and offer them more control over their experience. Doing these things will make users feel more secure and more in control of their SaaS experience. 

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As AI grows more and more sophisticated, it’s important to reassure your users that they’re in control of their data. You need to let them know that they’re the ones who get to decide how their data is collected and used and that you’re not collecting any data they don’t want you to collect. In the GDPR age, this isn’t only desirable for your users — it’s a legal requirement. 

Effective analytical insight

When operating in the SaaS sphere, leveraging data is one of the most important aspects in driving growth. Once your website is set up, you can integrate it with analytics tools and perform various functions such as tracking which search queries are bringing people to your site, analyzing which pages they are visiting most, and so on. This data will help you understand how people are using your site, and from here you can create detailed reports and define which areas require the most attention. A combination of both qualitative and quantitative data will offer the most effective insight into the overall progress of your site.

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Setup affiliate programs

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Referral marketing is a popular way to increase traffic to your website and generate leads. Referred users are typically those who have already visited your site and left a positive impression. Referred users can also be referred by friends or co-workers. Referred users are more likely to convert into paying customers than those who are not referred. Referred users also generate more revenue for your business because they are more likely to buy products or services than the average visitor. ReferralRock is the best referral marketing platform because it allows you to track referrals, measure ROI, and send automated messages to referrers.

An open mind to customer feedback

Positive feedback motivates us to keep performing at our best. However, it’s negative feedback that is often the most useful: it provides you with a road map for modernizing and improving your service in the most valuable way to your customers and consumers. Request that your customers rate your products, your services, and your website. Regularly inquire if your service meets all of your users’ requirements and solicit feedback on how you can improve it further. Otherwise, how will you create the best site for your SaaS customers’ needs?

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The SaaS industry is expected to continue growing and thriving in the coming years, and there are many ways you can prepare your SaaS website for the future. By building a rock-solid foundation, creating a culture of innovation and experimentation, investing in AI and machine learning capabilities — and more — you can help secure your SaaS website's success in 2022.

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