First impressions count for a lot when it comes to ecommerce. Your homepage will more than likely be the first thing your customers encounter when they click on to your site, and like every other page on your site should be functional, brand-led, and engaging.
We’ve built a lot of Shopify stores in our time, which means we’ve developed and put together countless homepages. Here’s our top five tips for designing the perfect homepage:
Make sure the design translates well to mobile, or customize the homepage for mobile
Mobile responsive sites are crucial to the success of an ecommerce store. After all, 52% of online traffic comes from mobile, and moreover 73% of consumers said that they’d switch from a poorly designed mobile site to one that makes purchasing easier. Your homepage is the first glimpse into what the rest of your mobile commerce experience will be like for your customers, so make it dynamic, engaging, and responsive.
Keep it simple/uncluttered
It’s tempting to try and get as much as possible on your homepage to get a customer to convert or explore the rest of the site. When it comes to an effective homepage, though, less is definitely more. Prioritize the elements you want visitors to focus on, making sure those stand out most. Your main navigation at the top of your homepage should be similarly straight-forward - too many options and you risk confusing visitors.
Use Eye-Catching Brand Imagery
Your homepage may be the first time a customer has engaged with your brand, so you want to make sure that it makes a statement! Bold, eye-catching imagery that can reflect and summarise your branding, products, and brand personality is essential. More importantly it should help towards fulfilling a goal you have for customers who land on your homepage. That might be conversions on a specific product, guiding them towards a different area of the site, etc.
Most standard homepages will have a banner image or slideshow, use this space wisely and consider what you want to promote most to visitors - a new collection, a sale, promoting your most popular products, etc. We’d recommend using a banner image over a slideshow - most people aren’t going to look at your other slides, it requires additional load time to load in a slideshow, and the slideshows are often less accessible.
Have an Easy-to-Access Search Bar
This tip is especially useful if your site has a fairly large collection of products, for example large apparel stores. While there are plenty of customers coming to your site just wanting to browse your product offering, there are many others who know specifically what it is they’re looking to purchase. By having your search bar easy to access, you’ll help customers get to their products much more quickly. Consider using an auto-complete function or search recommendations as the customer types to speed up this process even more.
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Want more tips on how to fine-tune other pages on your site? Check out our previous blogs:
4 Must-Haves For the Perfect Product Page
Tell a Story That Sells: How to Write the Perfect About Us
How to Create the Perfect FAQ Page for Your Shopify Store
Make More From Your 404: How to Make Your "No Search Results" Page Useful For Your Customers