This is a guest post by Jenni Tolman. Jenni is the Marketing Manager & SEO Writer for Miva Merchant, an all-inclusive ecommerce solution. You can contact Jenni @MivaMerchant.
How to Optimize Your Ecommerce Homepage
It is essential that you ensure every page of your online store is properly optimized, especially your ecommerce homepage.
A professional ecommerce homepage is one of the most critical elements to your online success, as it will define all other pages within your online store.
Here are some simple ways to optimize your online store and to improve your conversion rates.
Functions of Your Ecommerce Homepage
Your homepage is intended to deliver key trust-building items to page visitors. Users who land on your website from search queries may not find the homepage to be the most relevant page.
But combined with other standard overall best practices, homepages are still one of the most effective ways to turn would be one-time monetary conversions into repeat purchasers. In addition, your homepage is the best place to include key call-to-action messages and incentivized offerings (i.e. free shipping or discount products).
Ecommerce Homepages: What Can You Do To Improve Conversion Rates?
If you want an ecommerce homepage with higher conversions, consider if you have the following elements:
- Payment Icons: Clearly display accredited, accepted payment icons.
- Content: Emphasize content that can help educate and compel users to make a purchase.
- Links: Plainly name important links and keep hyperlinks to less than 100/page.
- Images: Use visually appealing images sparingly.
- Icons: Place trusted site icons (i.e. SSL seal).
- Headers: Appropriately use http headers to help bots efficiently “crawl” your homepage.
- Coupons: Spotlight incentivized offers (i.e. free shipping or coupon codes) with aesthetically pleasing banners or graphics.
- Buttons: Bring products into your homepage with add-to-cart buttons.
Ecommerce Homepages: Great Ecommerce Homepage Designs
Take a look at these examples of Miva Merchant Ecommerce stores that have successfully executed homepage optimization.
Ecommerce Homepages: What Are You Doing To Impede Conversion Rates?
Are you losing conversions because you’re ecommerce homepage has any of the following elements?
- Keyword: Keyword stuffing by writing unnecessary or invaluable page content.
- Graphics: Overusing graphics that can defer attention from legitimate call-to-action areas and negatively affect page load time.
- Key Page Elements: Positioning key page elements (i.e. navigation bar, header, footer, cart buttons, etc.) in non-standard areas.
- Text: Using multiple text entry boxes for search and e-mail signup forms.
- Pop-ups: Avoid using pop-up windows to bring attention to incentivized offers or call-to-actions. Users may see these practices as spam, or may have disabled their popup blocker.
Ecommerce Homepage Resources For Your Online Store
In addition to these best practices, use these web tools to create the best possible homepage for your Ecommerce store.
- Homepage Usability Guidelines
- Google® PageSpeed™ Insights
- Miva Merchant Professional Design Services
The most important thing to remember when optimizing your homepage is to communicate clearly to your potential customers about who you are and what you can do for them.
Once you set the expectations of what your solution is to their problem on your homepage, you must follow-through on delivering that promise throughout the entire customer experience.