The essential elements of a highly-converting e-commerce homepage
Your website’s homepage is such an important part of your website and customer experience. Alongside your product pages, it’s one of the most important parts of your e-commerce store in helping your customers get to know your brand and product. In this article, we’ll go over all the elements you need to create a homepage that not only looks beautiful and is engaging, but also converts your audience into customers.
Psst! If you’re stuck on how to design your homepage or if you’re looking for inspiration on what layouts to use, you can find a free resource at the bottom of this article.
Why is a homepage so important?
It can be really tempting to want to add everything on your homepage, however, the point of a homepage is to create a connection with your customers and encourage them to take action (i.e. visit your product pages and buy from you). It’s not just about showcasing your products, but about guiding your website visitors through a journey that leads to action.
Understanding the journey your customers take on your website and what information they need to know about your brand and product before they buy will help you put together a more strategic homepage, which will lead to building trust and increasing the likelihood they will purchase from you.
Essential sections for an e-commerce homepage
MENU AND NAVIGATION
Your top navigation should have no more than 5 items, as more links can make it hard for your customers to navigate and know where to go next. I recommend starting with Shop all, Bestsellers and About; the other pages should depend on your brand and product, and what the goals for your website are. For example, if one of the main goals for the website is to educate consumers on a key ingredient in your products, add that Ingredient page to the main navigation.
Other configurations I’ve used in the past:
Shop, Journal, About, Sale, Account
Shop all, New In, Our Makers, About us, Blog
Coffee, Subscription, Our Growers, About us
Shop, About, Sustainability, Rewards, Account
If you have a large catalogue of products, I would recommend a Shopify theme with a megamenu option, as this is the best way to organise your products and collections in a way that helps customers easily find what they’re looking for.
HERO SECTION
If your customers come to your website through the homepage, the hero section (what they see before they start scrolling) is the first impression of your brand, so the images and text at the top of your homepage need to clearly show what your product is about and if it's for them.
Use one of the best, high-quality photos you have, that shows your brand’s personality and puts your product in the best light. The headline should be captivating and it needs to communicate one of your brand’s main messages or key takeaways from your product.
The best practice for e-commerce is to also have a call to action, which should be simple and point customers towards their next step. It can be as simple as Shop now, but I recommend adding more of your brand personality (Grab your coffee fix or Discover your new beauty routine) to create a more memorable experience.
BEST SELLERS / NEW IN STOCK
As your audience starts scrolling through the homepage, the second thing they should see is a product section. This helps customers quickly find your products and start engaging with your product pages.
Highlight your best-selling products with a title that is explanatory but also contains keywords (Our most popular skincare picks). If you have new products in-store or have just launched a new collection, this is the perfect place to add them.
If you have a small product catalogue (5 items or less), turn this into a section that introduces your products and their features/benefits one by one. If you only have one product at the moment (By Heart and Wild Dose are great examples of websites that only sell one product) you can instead use this section to introduce your audience to the 3 main benefits of your product.
WHAT MAKES YOUR PRODUCT DIFFERENT
The goal of this section is to help your audience connect with your product on a deeper level. Think about what are the most important aspects of your product that your customers care about (ingredients, ease of use, sustainability) and showcase that.
Tell your customers how your product works, what the key ingredient in your formula is, or give them an overview of what sets your brand apart from your competitors. If it’s applicable to your product, you can also show how it’s made to create even more trust with your customers.
You can also use a comparison chart to help customers quickly see what sets your products apart from your competitors, highlighting features and benefits, with the goal of showing your customers why they should choose your brand or product. Common Ninja is one of my recommended Shopify apps for this.
SOCIAL PROOF
Reviews and features go a long way to building trust with your customers, so you need to have a section dedicated to customer reviews, and ideally press if you’ve been featured. If you use Shopify, judge.me is a great app for collecting customer feedback.
We’ve been featured in sections are becoming more and more common, but that doesn’t mean you should simply add a row of logos and call that done. You can add snippets of the articles alongside the logos, or if you’ve been featured in a magazine, take some photos of the mention and create a blog post about it, linking to the article on the homepage.
User-generated content grabs customers' attention and is more powerful than reviews, but it can make your homepage look less on-brand, unless you spend time curating that content. Another way to do this is to direct customers to your social media channels instead.
A SECOND SHOP SECTION
One of the biggest mistakes I see with e-commerce websites is the lack of sections that encourage customers to shop, so I always recommend having at least two separate sections on your homepage that allow visitors to quickly view your products or add them to the cart.
If you have a large product catalogue, this section can show the entire range of products in your store divided into clear categories or feature products that go really well together, which can encourage customers to add more products to their cart and increase their order value.
YOUR BRAND STORY OR MISSION
Now that your customers have most of the information they need about your product and why it's the best solution for their problem, you can dedicate a part of your homepage to your story to help them create a connection with your brand as well.
Adding your photo, as the founder or CEO of the business, will humanise your business and create a more personal connection, helping customers relate to the person behind the brand.
If you feel that your founding story won’t resonate with your audience, I recommend talking about your brand mission or your business values. Remember to keep this section short and succinct; you can share the entire story or all of your sustainability initiatives for the About us page.
NEWSLETTER
Whether you're actively working on growing your email subscribers or not, I recommend having a newsletter section on your website. Offer your customers a clear reason to join your newsletter (besides the 10% off, as this can lead to customers signing up just for a discount then unsubscribing) and avoid generic messaging. Instead, focus on the benefits of joining your newsletter and keeping in touch with your business or offer an incentive.
An interactive quiz or the chance to contribute to new product launches in your store would be great ways to entice your audience to sign up and create engagement (as well as gather some valuable data to use in your business). Customers love to feel like they are involved and their thoughts matter to the brands they buy from!
You might want to dedicate some time to creating a newsletter strategy before writing this section, to know what will entice your customers to subscribe. If you're stuck for ideas of engaging emails to send your audience, you can grab my free resource outlining 10 newsletter ideas here.
THE FOOTER
The footer can often be overlooked but it’s a great place to help customers quickly find useful information. Your audience expects to find links to contact details, shipping and returns information, as well as social media links. Placing all your important links in the footer (no. 1) helps improve navigation and ensures all the important information on your website is easily accessible without adding too many pages to the top navigation.
But it doesn’t have to be a boring section! You can get creative and add more of your brand's personality (no. 2), your brand mission, a curated view of your social media channels or anything else that might entice your customers to keep exploring your brand further.
Are you looking for more inspiration?
Bringing these sections to life can be challenging, so I’ve created a free guide to help you turn these ideas into actual designs for your website, with examples at each step of the way, and a few extra tips for creating a homepage that truly resonates with your customers.
