Why is my SaaS not converting?

Show Bootstrapped
#21

Great advice.
++1 for “individual landing pages” for each use (and I’d argue for each language).

How about if you pick your “low hanging fruit” LANGUAGE and make a killer landing page:

  1. Simple, clear benefit
  2. Sample of one of your translations. (Presumably, if you are shooting for high end, your customers hopefully can spot the difference between good/bad translations. If not then you have a HUGE problem of convincing them you’re better)
  3. How about a money back guarantee on a RANDOM paragraph of their document? (so your translator starts with one random paragraph and submits that to them)
  4. Poor conversion from “landed on registration page > registered”: I think that’s because of the landing page. The registration page gives me_no additional information_, only more work to do before I can proceed.
  5. What is the smallest, easiest next step for the user?
  6. Have you considered having a chat option? That is the BEST way to find out what your customers want/need from the site.
  7. Stress “accurate, natural translation” (somehow stress that the translation will look like a native speaker wrote it.)
#22

I can imagine the “uncommidified” corner can only exist in some areas, such as ads copy, where the emotional impact should be high.

This is an uphill battle. But good luck with that.

Fine with me, I care not about your relationships with translators. It is the pricing model that I care about and it confuses me.

Now I see from your other answers (it is not clear from the copy on the site!) that you’re also providing management tools. Well… do I need them? I’m not convinced. I should be able to start working without these tools (and subscription) and then you can try and upsell them to me.

I understand your desire to have a recurring revenue, but whatever I’m paying for monthly should save/make me more, and I’m not sure it does.

Buyers come to the site with a mental model. That model includes a price per word, and doesn’t include any subscription. By NOT providing a price per word and INCLUDING a subscription you simply put yourself at complete odds with the buyers mental model - no wonder they think “this is not what I’m looking for!” and leave!

Why is that? To fill up the marketplace? It will attract the crappies, cheapest, most unreliable types. That goes against the stated plan of being “uncommidified”.

Agencies are expected to support their own competition in the race to the bottom? o_O

The issue is not the resistance, but that the value is not demonstrated.

1 Like
#23

Buyers come to the site with a mental model. That model includes a price per word, and doesn’t include any subscription. By NOT providing a price per word and INCLUDING a subscription you simply put yourself at complete odds with the buyers mental model - no wonder they think “this is not what I’m looking for!” and leave!

I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to disrupt the buyer’s mental model - BUT: you must communicate clearly. Disrupting the buyer’s mental model and not communicating what you’re doing will lead to exactly the outcome you suggest: “this isn’t what I’m looking for.” But I know in my case, as a buyer, I get excited about products that have different models and incentives because it feels like an actual alternative, instead of an also-ran.

From this discussion, it sounds like an easy first step is to do some A/B testing with his site copy and possibly the registration flow. He already has traffic that should be enough to get a few conversions, so funnel a 20-30% of them into a version of the site with some improvements and see what happens.

#24

Right, fairly solid arguments, just a few points to comment on:

I can imagine the “uncommidified” corner can only exist in some areas, such as ads copy

A few more areas than that, namely the technical, financial and legal. Translation as an industry is still growing with global trade, so some addressable demand for non-commodity translation should be around for at least the foreseeable future.

Buyers come to the site with a mental model.

If I can communicate to them that (a) You only pay the translator directly or (b) you pay a posting fee and the translator directly (as per a job board) then I’d probably be able to clear up the confusion a bit.

I’m just in two minds now over the model.

To fill up the marketplace? It will attract the crappies, cheapest, most unreliable types.

In this model, where agencies pay but freelancers/buyers don’t, there is a conflict of interest if the agencies work with crappy translators. Which many do, after presenting top translators’ CVs and qualifications. Remember though that I’m only approving accounts for verifiably experienced translators. So the crappies don’t get through. It’s not a problem to fill the supply side. For agencies to be high quality I’d need to see ISO certification (I know, I know, but it’s a start) and check their reputation from various sources. There are also national/international translation agency associations with codes of conduct. That kind of thing.

Agencies are expected to support their own competition in the race to the bottom? o_O

Fun point, but I don’t see it playing out like that, given the above. If they want another source of leads and some simple placement tools for languages they can’t cover (at that particular moment), a cheap subscription wouldn’t be an unreasonable purchase. To my mind, at least. Presumably they’d be confident enough in their services to put their own USP forward in their proposals. They can truly take the leg-work out of a large translation project for buyers, at a cost.

The issue is […] that the value is not demonstrated.

Yep. For sure. After a reply or two more I’ll post my checklist for the new main landing page. Perhaps see if it makes sense to you.

#25

Thank you very much!

Since Steve said that about individual landing pages I’ve been looking at top language service provider (LSP) sites and they do exactly that. I’d seen it before, but had never thought to implement it. But they’ve done it reasonably seamlessly, i.e. you only really land there from Google/DDG/Bing, then get sold to in a relevant context.

Thank you for the example content for the landing page. I wouldn’t have thought about all of that in a month of Sundays. I do have sample translations on my own freelance website, and I think they’re the best way forward. Guarantee is a great plan - they seemed to always work on the old long-form sales pages.

As for chat, I’ve had a chat feature on-site before, and found it excellent. I like them myself on other sites. But it’s a timesink and resource-hog so it got shelved. But when this page is converting and I am confident the chat will be manned, I’ll definitely go for it again. Although I’m probably missing some great feedback in the meantime…

The registration page, addressed elsewhere in the thread, is due for an overhaul.

I’ve just stumbled upon ‘Paragraphs’ for Drupal today. It looks like it can create some really dynamic pages in no time, so I’ll rebuild the main and sub landing pages in those. Probably templated for the sub pages. Feels like a bit of a breakthrough, as I was struggling to style Panels, and working within its constraints.

Next reply to ben.collins will set out my checklist for the new homepage…

#26

I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to disrupt the buyer’s mental model - BUT: you must communicate clearly.

It’s so obvious, but I get wrapped up in some train of thought that’s totally disconnected from reality sometimes. Thank you for pointing that out. At the same time I don’t want them to have to read a how-to, but if they can grok it in a few seconds I’ll be happy.

But I know in my case, as a buyer, I get excited about products that have different models and incentives

Good to know - I think I do too. Models like Leanpub or Pronoun.com have captured my interest for long stretches of time in the past.

From this discussion, it sounds like an easy first step is to do some A/B testing with his site copy and possibly the registration flow.

I think I’m going to go straight for the overhaul, as ‘A’ has been running for months and not getting anywhere. So Bs improvements will be marked, if they hit the right spot.

Here’s the plan:

  • Rebuild homepage in Paragraphs (see example site)
  • Clarify one-liner offer above the fold
  • Clarify copy throughout, to cover the model, offer and benefits better
  • Put explainer video above the fold
  • Bring in imagery in background and in-line (bye-bye top 2% of website page load times… need to perhaps write up why page load times aren’t everything when you’re only loading confusing messaging)
  • Make registration page simpler: email/password or email only
  • Add landing pages for specific languages
  • Consider restoring the front page quote engine (I have one semi-built) that jumps to the register page
  • Decide on a pricing approach and go with it (job board and/or agencies paying subs)

The last point is the toughest nut to crack. I’ll put more thought in. Comments still welcome on that front.

Give me a few days and I’ll get back to you with the improved pages.

Really appreciate everyone’s input. :green_heart:

#27

Not a bad thing, but an awfully hard one.

You’d need to hold the visitor attention while all they want to do is leave. And not just attention, but a comprehension - they should realize their current model has deficiencies and even pains and there is a better way.

I doubt it is even possible for visitors from Google - they click Back too fast.

#28

My initial impressions…

As someone else mentioned, it is a little text-heavy. All different coloured underlines that slashed across the page make it difficult to focus. I’m sure you have plenty of other feedback above for the homepage so I’ll leave it there.

The registration page is another important part in that you didn’t receive a single sign up from 200 users who clicked to sign up for 7.99. The number one reason I would not sign up after hitting that link is because the form doesn’t look professional. There are a couple of layout issues in Chrome (upload button really close to “choose file” in the logo section).

This is exacerbated by the fact that the form is asking for way too much investment. I haven’t even paid yet. It’s far too easy for me to disappear and go find something else. My suggestion would be to create a registration process that is as simple as possible. Remove company profile and contact info. Ask for simple details. If you require further information, allow them to sign up first before prompting for a complete profile or specification of their requirements. It requires much less investment from the visitor and will give you at least some contact info you can potentially use to follow up with later.

Edit: seems like all of that’s been covered! Kudos to this forum. Some very good suggestions above.

#29

Chat can be distracting.
You could “staff it” only for a few hours a day while doing non intensive stuff.

I can think of no better use of your time than confirming the customer’s needs and impression of your site.

#30

Hi Luke,

Noticed you’re in Derby, I live just north of Derby, if you want to meet up for a coffee sometime just let me know. Happy to help if I can.

#31

Cheers - have messaged you, Kevin.

@Clay_Nichols - Completely reasonable. Let me get the base offer and pricing down and then I think I’ll work on the fine-tuning via chat etc. - Had Zopim on a business site once and it was simple to use with a Google Talk/Hangouts account. Then tried a Drupal-specific chat more recently. It worked, but as I say, was quite resource and time-hungry. Not averse to it, just need to probably present the offer better first.

#32

The lowest hanging fruit is your sign up page. It should have 2 fields only: email and password. If you absolutely need more information, ask for it later. Why do I need to upload a logo or tell you where I live if I just want to get something translated? You are not making it easy for people to give you their money.

The other option is to take advantage of their sense of immediacy and not even ask for email and password at first. Just let them upload a document and post the job. Then ask for email and CC info at the last step, once they have already invested some effort into it.

2 Likes
#33

Quick update: https://www.linguaquote.com/home is still a WIP but if you want to check out the direction, feel free to have a look.

Still need to add:

  • Video (settled on a screencast for now - but not convinced it’ll boost conversions after reading around - for a service marketplace, that is)
  • Logos of companies the translators have worked with
  • A carousel of profile text with logos
  • Perhaps an example of what people can expect to pay (the translators) such as a max-min per-word range for the site
  • Make features/benefits and use-cases clearer.

Note that pricing is currently set to free because I need to get feedback still and I was perhaps jumping the gun charging, plus I could even be happy with a sponsorship model if things pick up.

Note also that registration requires just an email address now. I toyed with building the reg form into the create project form, but there were complications in how the backend is set up, permissions and various bits of logic.

Am also testing adding the single email box reg form to the front page labelled “Step 1” with a button labelled “Step 2: Create project” to reduce friction by one click.

Fill your boots.

1 Like
#34

Good stuff. Let us know if you start getting some sign ups.

A really good thing about a very simple step 1 of the sign up process is you’ll start getting some email addresses from people who are clearly interested in your service but abandoned the next step of the sign up process.

#35

Cheers, @SteveMcLeod

New page is up now. Still far from optimal, need to tweak copy quite a lot and add that screencast, but overall I’m hoping it’s more appealing at this point to prospects. I think the content marketing onslaught may now begin.

Thanks again all for your input. I think I find it hard to see my own projects as objectively as I do others’.

Will report back with any further success or pre-success events. :blue_heart:

PS - the old front page can still be seen at https://www.linguaquote.com/welcome, for posterity’s sake.

#36

Hey @luxpir,
Just my 2 cents here, the new home page has quite a few glitches when viewed on mobile (I’m on an iPhone 6). Sorry, I tried posting screenshots here but I’m too much of a new user be able to upload images on bootstrapped it seems :slight_smile:
You may want to have a look into it once you settle with the new content.

#37

Seems like I got my “you’re not a scary spammer” badge just now :blush:
Here are the screen shots from I mentioned above:

IMG_4284.PNG1242×2208 259 KB

IMG_4283.PNG1242×2208 142 KB

#38

Thanks for the tip off - yeah, had unfortunately noticed. I think I set one too many heights in the CSS, among a few other gaffes. Will endeavour to keep sorting once I crack the content/conversion thing a little more.