The article you are reading is edition No. 5 of our Growthletter, the newsletter where we publish advanced ecommerce strategies every week
Here’s the second part of our ultimate guide to optimizing your ecommerce homepage. Continuing from where the previous insights left off. If you missed the first part, you can catch up on it here. But without further ado, let’s dive in!
In the last article, we explored the first two objectives of a homepage:
- Communicating the value proposition.
- Establishing credibility.
Today, we’ll cover the third objective: guiding users down the purchase path.
Identify the key actions users frequently perform on your homepage. You can discover this through:
- Analyzing clickmaps on tools like Hotjar.
- Exploring Google Analytics → Behavior → Behavior Flow, setting your homepage as the starting point to see where users typically navigate.
This will clarify which pages users visit most from your homepage.
Also, consider the number of products and categories in your ecommerce. Your homepage CTAs should funnel users accordingly:
- If you have many products, don’t link directly to individual products but to the most chosen category pages.
- This makes it easier to direct users to the right product for them.
A great example is ASOS, which, for new users landing on its site, presents only two actions: SHOP WOMEN and SHOP MEN, effectively segmenting users right from the start.
AllBirds follows a similar approach, with its main CTAs being SHOP MEN and SHOP WOMEN, streamlining user navigation even with a narrower product catalog.
For a more detailed breakdown:
- ASOS segments users into men’s and women’s products immediately.
- AllBirds, with a limited product range, guides users to product bestsellers or specific categories right after the initial segmentation.
We applied these insights to a project we follow: Be Your Bag. We’ve completely revamped the site (a case study on our successful outcomes will follow soon), focusing on:
- A CTA directing to “All Products.”
- Social proof elements.
- Sections leading to the most viewed categories.
- Links to the best-selling single products.
We adopted a funnel approach, starting with the broadest category and narrowing down to individual products. If your ecommerce has many products, many users will immediately use the search bar, so keep this behavior in mind during homepage design.
For example, the new homepage we designed for CardTrader, the largest gaming card marketplace in Italy, emphasizes:
- A prominent search bar.
- Social proof that appeals to both buyers and sellers.
- An “Choose your game” option as a primary user action, with the most popular games featured but indicating more options are available.
In summary, here are the strategies you should test:
Strategy 1: Main CTA
Your homepage’s Above the Fold section should contain a CTA leading to high-level paths most chosen by users, not to individual products. For gender-specific products, it might be “Shop Men” and “Shop Women”; for a smaller catalog, it could be “View all products.”
Strategy 2: Funnel Approach
Design subsequent sections beyond just displaying authority and social proof; they should direct to higher levels of your catalog:
- Main Section → Discover all products
- Second Section → Most chosen categories
- Third Section → Bestseller products
Strategy 3: Show the Search Bar
Immediately displaying the search bar allows users to quickly find the specific product or category they’re looking for. This strategy works well if:
- You have a medium/large product catalog.
- People already know what products you sell.
- You have an optimized internal search engine.
Now, you should have all the strategies needed to optimize your homepage and significantly boost your conversion rate.
Wishing you great growth,
Thomas
