Trying to redesign the homepage of e-commerce website

[Justin B1212]

I am trying to redesign the homepage of my word press e-commerce website. Could you please share with me what are the most important factors for a good homepage? Is it important to have a slice of of the best sellers and maybe a section of the best selling ranges on the homepage? Is it important to have the the important keywords such as business location on the homepage? Many thanks.

 

[Nico Albrecht]

Website Speeeeeed!
UI/UX!
Simple easy checkout with plenty of choices for payment!
Depending what you are flogging a proper description e. G sizes and dimensions.

 

[fisicx]

Depends on your marketing plan, what you are selling and to whom.

Business location should be on every page.

 

[Deleted member 335660]

I am trying to redesign the homepage of my word press e-commerce website. Could you please share with me what are the most important factors for a good homepage? Is it important to have a slice of of the best sellers and maybe a section of the best selling ranges on the homepage? Is it important to have the the important keywords such as business location on the homepage? Many thanks.

Hi Justin, I have just been giving our website a 12 month revamp. I should not worry about location as long as it is somewhere on the website like in the Contact Us page.

I have gallery of our products so people get a flavour of what we are selling and a Call to Action button ( Start Shopping) that takes people to the main shop page.

I have New Products first so our regular customers can see what’s new. Then sale products.

Difficult for us to put Best Sellers as we have a physical shop and what sells best in one place not always does well in the other.

Just make it simple, inviting and easy to get to where people want to go. For example I am member of the Royal British Legion and on their website you have to search for Members Log in.

 

[fisicx]

I should not worry about location as long as it is somewhere on the website like in the Contact Us page.

Or put it on every page.

I have gallery of our products so people get a flavour of what we are selling and a Call to Action button ( Start Shopping) that takes people to the main shop page.

Or just have the shop as the homepage.

I have New Products first so our regular customers can see what’s new. Then sale products.

Or email regulars with details of new and sale products. New visitors won't care about new products as they will usually only ever be on the site because they are looking for something specific.

Looking at your site you aren't making is easy for your visitors.

 

[UKSBD]

it depends on the store.

Have a look at Amazon in incognito mode

It's not geared to sell products - It's selling itself

Sign in, select address, join prime, learn more, free delivery, etc.

 

[WebshopMechanic]

Many e-commerce stores have a tendency to flood their homepage with sales messages, best-selling-products, new arrivals, going-going-gone and discounts.

If you vomit products and offers over their screen they will leave because they can't be bothered to navigate through a busy site. Shoppers that are given too many options also suffer from a 'paradox of choice' where they end up making no decision and they leave.

A homepage is not a sales page. It's a hook. Much like a shop window on the high street, it is meant to capture attention and bring people deeper into the site.

It is also a tool for building trust. It doesn't matter how good your product is, if your homepage is dire then people won't trust you and again, they will leave.


My suggestions for an e-commerce page are:

K.I.S.S - Keep it simple stupid. Use 1 key message at the top, 2 below and then maybe feature a couple of products or categories. Maximum 6 product or category-related messages. E-commerce sites targeting a younger audience often have more because they make them look like an Instagram feed but this can turn off older audiences.

Tag line / Proposition - Under your logo or at the top of your homepage, you should have something that says what you do or what you stand for. This is like a mini elevator pitch for your brand. You have 3 seconds to make a first impression so make sure people know why they should stay.

Display one clear message - This is directed towards your audience and takes them to the main event. Still amazes me that many online stores have 50 different messages because they are trying to target every man and their dog. Use messaging that talks to your customer.

USPs - Include unique selling points. Why are you different? Why should somebody do business with you?

Delivery - Highlight this as it's a key driver.

Call-to-actions - Human beings need to be told what to do so BIG BUTTONS work. Use them!

Design and images - Steer clear of stock photography. If possible, use your own. Make your products interesting. From a design perspective, white space is good because it helps to guide people around the page using colour.

Social proof - If your business lends itself to Instagram or you have images of customers using your product then show them. This reinforces trust.

Testimonials - These are ok because they reinforce you are a company that can be trusted.

Press logos - If you've been featured in the press then subtly show logos. Again, reinforced trust.

Include mailing list sign up higher up - This is often shoved in the footer. Who goes there for anything? Make collecting data a key part of your strategy but give them a reason to sign up. Not just a 'sign up to offers' or 'get our newsletter'. Nobody needs another newsletter. Use something like an 'Exclusive VIP club'.

About you - You should include a small section that details a little bit about your business and why they should do business with you.

Must work on mobile! - Test, test and test this. If your site looks awful on mobile then you're going to lose business. Mobile-first and then work back.

Review regularly - Your analytics will tell you if you have a problem with your homepage because people will be leaving before they go anywhere. You can also install Hotjar (has a free trial) which records how people use your site. Great tool for understanding customer movements. You will be able to see if they are getting confused.

Speed - Some of the guys on here have already mentioned this. Don't upload hi-res images on your homepage. Compress the file sizes (you can use https://compressjpeg.com/).

SEO - You can include some text about your location if you want to boost your SEO for a particular area for retail outlets. If you are pure ecommerce then this is unnecessary and looks weird. You would be better of refining the homepage content to be focused around your main target keyword for the business. Note that I said for 'the business', not keywords for the product categories or products themselves.

A few examples I like:

https://www.patchplants.com/gb/en/
https://www.fairfaxandfavor.com/
https://www.rapportlondon.com/


Hope that helps

Matt

 

[14Steve14]

Have a look at your website stats. You may be surprised how few people actually land or look at your homepage. I used to show text, new products, featured products, specials and all sorts of stuff on the home page. Now I dont. Its a very basic page with category links and links to other areas of interest on the website. There is next to no selling on the page.

 

[Ozzy]

I am trying to redesign the homepage of my word press e-commerce website. Could you please share with me what are the most important factors for a good homepage? Is it important to have a slice of of the best sellers and maybe a section of the best selling ranges on the homepage? Is it important to have the the important keywords such as business location on the homepage? Many thanks.

I have just gone through this process on my wife's shop, and I'm no expert but a few things that made a difference to her site;

• Big banner promoting free delivery on all orders over £X (it is £30 for her)
• Best Sellers carousel; although this is a double edge sword because all she mainly sells is her best sellers. I'm wondering if this is detracting from her other products.

...but after analysing her website funnels in Google Analytics and seeing she was getting a large drop off at the Checkout, and following some very good advice from @fisicx , I installed CheckoutWC plugin and her website conversion rate skyrocketed. Improving the checkout process to be slick and easy made the greatest difference of all.

We also run Facebook ads and a social media campaign that take people direct to the product they are viewing, and I have spent a lot of time on SEO on her site so most of her high ranking Google pages are her product pages. Hardly anyone actually lands on the home page of her site, most landing pages are product pages for her.

 

[Fagin2021]

The most difficult decision you’ll have to make about the content of your home page is not what to put in but what to leave out.

As has been said, too much clutter and they’ll run screaming. Especially on mobile.

If a mobile user has to scroll down more than three times before they're enticed into the rest of the site, a good proportion will leave.

I hide a lot of page content from mobile users. That hurts, but it makes the page cleaner and easy to read. If possible, get your main messages in above the scroll.

As a general tip, the most powerful marketing words are..

Free – as in ‘free delivery’
New – as in ‘new design’
Guarantee – as in ’guaranteed results’
Risk Free – as in ’risk-free returns’

The footer is the place for links to things like contact details, terms, about us, privacy policy and so on.

 

[antropy]

The most difficult decision you’ll have to make about the content of your home page is not what to put in but what to leave out.

100%, too short will not help your organic SEO but too long will mean customers just breeze over the text. Getting the middle ground is very hard indeed. Alex

 

[fisicx]

100%, too short will not help your organic SEO but too long will mean customers just breeze over the text. Getting the middle ground is very hard indeed. Alex

Not quite correct. Your category pages are far more seo worthy than the homepage.

 

[Ozzy]

Not quite correct. Your category pages are far more seo worthy than the homepage.

This is what I have found with my wife's SEO, her category pages and product pages are generating most of her income from organic Google results.
Who knew SEO was so easy LOL

 

[antropy]

Not quite correct. Your category pages are far more seo worthy than the homepage.

Ah yes sorry should have been more precise Alex

 

[ToppaFounder]

A hero section including your mission statement and tagline

A hero section is usually made up of a large image or slideshow, and it comes right below the navigation bar. The idea for the hero section is to quickly give visitors an idea of what to expect from the rest of your website. One mistake a lot of homepages make is they only use hero sections for aesthetic purposes. In a nutshell, if you’re wasting this much screen real estate without giving any information, such as your mission statement and tagline, you’re doing something wrong.

The hero section can also include a key part of your home page, the Call To Action.
Ultimately, every website has a goal, which usually involves conversions. This can mean getting users to purchase something from you, give you their email, and plenty more.

The easiest way to get visitors to do something is by asking them, which is where CTAs come in. This can be a button or just plain text, but whichever approach you take, it needs to stand out from the rest of the elements within your homepage.

One easy way to do this is by using contrasting colours, also your choice of words also plays an important role, so consider them carefully.

Clear navigation menus
Unless you’re working on a one-page design, visitors need menus to move around your website. A menu should be the first thing they see on your homepage and it should be both highly readable and easy to use.

As you will know, menus also often house your logo and CTAs, which makes them one of the more important homepage web design elements.

Finally, but most importantly is to have a cracking brand. Invest (if you can) in getting your brand put together professionally as it can make such a huge difference.

Good luck

 

[ecommerce84]

but after analysing her website funnels in Google Analytics and seeing she was getting a large drop off at the Checkout, and following some very good advice from @fisicx , I installed CheckoutWC plugin and her website conversion rate skyrocketed. Improving the checkout process to be slick and easy made the greatest difference of all.

I know this is taking the thread on a slight tangent, but I’m intrigued by this as I’d been looking at CheckoutWC and it’s still sat on the ‘to do’ list!

Have you gone from the standard ‘one page checkout’ to a multi page checkout or do CheckoutWC offer a one page checkout.

I like the concept of one page, but have been quite sold on how WC handles it by default.

 

[Ozzy]

As a summary, the default Woocommerce checkout is very bulking and long, and wastes a lot of online real estate. CheckoutWC gets rid of a lot of the noise, consolidates the screen, and introduced a natural user flow. The outcome for my wife's business was this;

https://twitter.com/RichardOsborne/status/1366061613812482049?s=20

 

[Fagin2021]

As a point of interest, the average (I hate 'averages') ecommerce checkout dropout rate is around 70%. This is for a variety of reasons - some of which have nothing to do with the complexity of the checkout process and can be pre-handled. For example, many sites don't reveal delivery charges until you're at the checkout. Some people use the checkout as a 'wish list'. Some people open multiple browser tabs to compare prices.
Quite a few sites haven't learned that if you ask the buyer for a load of unnecessary information they won't hang around.

 

[shadowjoe]

Tons of information shared here already and it's definitely helpful and important but to make a homepage of a website keeping all these aspects on your own is quite challenging. Especially, if you don't have enough experience. Tell me, what's your attitude towards outsourcing design tasks? There are just many opportunities to hire professional designers at relatively low prices. Or maybe you can be lucky to find a decent freelancer on Fiverr.

 

[Oporteo]

Website speed!

- Make sure the page is clear and looks clean.

- Make sure the message of your business is clear.

- Ensure your business can be identified from the homepage.

- Keep the URL for the page simple.