369. eCommerce Home Page Set Up Strategy

Your home page is the first impression most people have of your store. And you’ve got maybe 3 seconds before someone decides if they’re sticking around or bouncing.

So it’s worth being intentional about what you’re putting in front of them.

The way I think about it… your home page is a guide. The goal isn’t to show everything you sell. It’s to make a strong first impression and move people where they need to go.

Here’s how to set that up

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How to Optimize Your eCommerce Hero Banner for Conversions

It starts with the main hero banner at the top of the page. This is prime real estate and you want to be super strategic with what you feature here. Think of this as the front table in a brick and mortar store. The items that go on that table are never an accident. The retailer is always going to put the most important merchandise on that table because it’s the first thing the shopper is going to see.

The same goes for your banner. It should feature whatever is most important to your business at any given time. Between campaigns, it should feature your best seller; whether that’s a specific product or a specific collection. But you always want it to be product-first. Don’t use some generic feature that tries to encapsulate everything you sell. Feature something specific. 

Be Strategic With Your Banner Feature & Layout

Once you decide what that is, you also want to be strategic with the content you feature on that banner and the layout of it. The most important thing to include is an actual button that is visible above the fold on desktop. On mobile once the content stacks, it’s okay if the button is below the fold, but on desktop, this is non-negotiable. 

On most themes you’re going to have options for how tall the banner is, whether you set the actual height or if it’s based on the image. I always aim to make the banner short enough that the user can clearly see there is more content right below it. At a minimum you want them to see white space, ideally you want a peek of the actual content whether that’s the heading of the section underneath or some of the visual content. 

Be specific with your text content as well. Clear over clever. You don’t want to confuse your website visitor because you’re using flowery language and they don’t understand what you’re trying to sell. While you can have fun with a campaign slogan or something, make sure you at least have a subheading or additional text that makes it super clear what they’ll find when they click your call to action button. 

Make Sure Your Banner is Readable by Search Engines

You also want to make sure that you’re using the web text and button blocks in your theme. Try to avoid using a pre-designed image that has the text and button designed into it. Not only is web text and the button better for SEO, it’s also a better experience for the user and the responsiveness of your website. 

If your theme allows you to set different desktop and mobile images, you might be able to get away with this, but the truth is, more often than not, it doesn’t work out the way merchants want and it’s better to just use web text. 

If you really hate the way your theme’s banners work, it might be worth it to check out some pre-made sections for your site, or if you’re on Shopify, you can ask sidekick to make you a banner that does more of what you want it to do. Yes, it’ll be a little more work upfront, but it will serve you in the long run. 

Static Banner vs. Slideshow

Then there is the question of static banner vs. slideshow. Honestly, this has been a debate for as long as I’ve been in eCommerce and I don’t think we’ll ever get a definitive answer. I think it’s one of those things that just depends on your business, customer, and products. 

What I will say though, is if you feel compelled to have a slider, because you have important things you want to show your customer, try to cut it off at 3. There’s no hard and fast rule here, but I like to consider the paradox of choice here. Once you get beyond 3, it’s no longer curated, and could just end up overwhelming your customer. 

Remember, the hero banner is your front table, and it’s reserved for the best of the best at the moment.  

Strategy for Featured Products and Category Feeds

So, if the table is the most visible area of a retail store, what is the 2nd most visible? That is the right wall. Studies show that most customers will walk to the right when entering a retail store, so that 1st wall is also prime real estate. 

Depending on how you look at it, the additional slides in your hero could be considered that wall. But it can also be the section right under the hero. 

While there is no perfect answer, a general rule of thumb you can use is if you have a really wide product assortment, maybe you have a slideshow and consider that your right wall. So apparel, jewelry, etc. 

If you have a small product assortment, I say treat the section under your hero as the right wall. 

Bestseller or New Arrivals Product Feed

So, what goes into this second section under the hero banner? 99% of the time I recommend you put a product feed of your best sellers. Remember, our goal here is to guide the customer, so if your hero banner is promoting your latest collection, we don’t want to hide our best sellers, those should still be front and center. 

And this is not necessarily something I would ever switch out, unless you turn over your product quickly. So if you’re just sell trendy clothing that cycles out every season, you might want this to be your new arrivals instead of your best sellers. 

Category Features or Product Bundles

For the next section, under this product feed, I will typically put some category features. This is when you have to start looking at your product assortment and think about how your customer shops. What is the general entry point for them? Are they deciding between your men’s and women’s collection, are they going by a product type, for example necklaces, earrings, etc. 

Pick a handful of your most popular collections and feature them here. If you have a smaller product assortment maybe you’re going to feature a specific product like a special bundle, or something like that. Again, this totally depends on your unique business. 

Ultimately, don’t get too stressed out about this. The truth is, the majority of customers only scroll about halfway down the page; meaning most people won’t even see what’s below those first two sections. That’s also why your navigation is super important, but we’re going to talk about that in another episode. 

Reviews & Social Proof

After you’ve optimized your product features, then it’s time to include some supporting content. The first section I would include is a review or social proof section. Ideally you’ll want to use a widget from your review platform*, vs. typing in a handful of testimonials into a section of your theme. It just looks more legit and believable when you’re showing a review widget. If you don’t have a review platform and your only option is to type them directly in your theme, well that’s better than nothing and so do it. 

Using an ‘About Us’ Section to Build Trust on the HomepageYou Section

Under your reviews is where you can add a mini about you section that links to your full about page. Be intentional about what you write here. Yes, it’s about you, but it’s also about them. You want to position this content to be about how you’re there to help them. So, instead of saying I do this because I love it, you can say, I do this because I want to bring you xyz. 

Additional Conversion & Connection Content

The other sections you include on your home page are going to depend a bit on your business. For example, if you have a lot of blog posts, you might want to feature them at the bottom before your footer. If you’re community driven then you’ll want to feature those details. This is also a good place to show off your product recommendations quiz, product guides, tutorials, wholesale details, etc. Whatever additional information you want to make sure gets featured. 

Again, not many people are going to make it down this far, but it’s also a good way to show search engines what your store is all about, so think about that when you’re deciding. 

Email Sign Up Form

Last, but certainly not least, is an email signup. Even if you’re using a pop-up form, you still want a static, embedded form that people can sign up through. Most themes are going to have this in the footer. If yours doesn’t or you need that footer space for something else, then you should add a full-width signup right above your footer. You’ll want this to actually be a new section in your footer, so it shows up on every page, but it can be above the area where your footer links, social media icons, etc. are. 

Benchmarks to Watch

Now, before you go down a rabbit hole of trying to build the perfect home page, I want to give you a little benchmark to consider as you’re thinking through this. 50%. You want roughly 50% of your website traffic to show shopping activity. That means, navigating to collections and products. Both Shopify and Google Analytics will surface this percentage in their shopping journey reports. If you’re at or above this, and you love your home page, you can ignore most of what I said and move on. If you’re below that, or you just want to give yourself a little optimization boost, it shouldn’t take you long to make these upgrades. 

And remember, benchmarks are just that, benchmarks. They’re not hard and fast rules, there are other variables that could contribute to lower shopping activity rates like if you get a lot of blog traffic. If that’s you, look your numbers when you exclude blog pages as the first page someone lands on and I bet your numbers are better than you think. You might also see a lower rate if you have a strong brick-and-mortar presence with people coming to your site just to get information about your store. Regardless, my goal for you is to be better than you were yesterday, not to aim for some benchmark that doesn’t take into consideration any of the nuances in your business.

Your Next Steps

First, check your shopping activity metric just so you know what you’re working with. Then, scroll through your home page and see if it matches these recommendations. 

• Hero banner featuring the most important items right now.
• Call to action above the fold
• Bestselling product feed
• Category features
• Social Proof
• About you
• Email Sign up

Make any necessary adjustments, and then check back in 90 days and see if there has been any improvement. Be really careful not to get sucked into an optimization rabbit hole though. Remember, that generally the better you are doing, the harder it is to see measurable improvements. Someone who has 30% shopping activity is more likely to see a significant bump than someone who is already getting 50-60%.