A Homepage's Purpose

In recent months, I’ve found myself needing more and more shopping therapy. You?

I’m pretty frugal in general, ask my husband. So it usually takes a while for me to spend money.

Not leaving the house much in the last however many months though has brought on a serious desire to buy something. Anything. Usually something I don’t need.

On a whim, I bought myself a 3d pen and some extra filament (plastic) because clearly, I needed this now. A few hours of research and a hundred bucks later, my money was spent.

It got me thinking. When was the last time anyone bought something they wanted without another thought?

I’m not talking about the candy impulse buy while shopping at Target.

Rather the impulse to buy without thinking about who you’re buying from, price, shipping details, or the like.

That’s equal to walking into a random store, grabbing the item and running straight to the register to buy without looking at anything else.

As a parent, I can assure you this rarely happens in my household.

As with any storefront, you’ll see signs for sale items, the hot item my 8-year-old must have, and of course more items towards the back of the store.

Why?

That’s because the goal of the storefront is to pull me in. They don’t want me to buy this one thing my kiddo saw in the window display. They want to add more to our basket before reaching the checkout counter.

Think of your Shopify homepage as a storefront.

The purpose of your homepage isn’t to sell them on that one item that brought them in from the proverbial sidewalk. Merchants are often too eager to close the sale.

Yep, you read that right. Don’t rush to close the sale. Pushing customers to buy before they are ready will only cause them to close their browser. Remember they are online. They don’t have to walk past your salesperson on their way out the door. They can close their browser and not give you a second thought.

Instead, use your homepage to pull shoppers in.

Show products on your homepage and encourage them to learn more about your product before buying. Teach them why they should buy from you, see what you’re all about, and hopefully buy even more items they don’t need. I kid.

Make it easy for them to want to buy from you with these quick homepage tips:

1. Use a clear and easy to follow navigation with no more than 5 menu items up top.
2. Have strong calls to action and state what makes you so awesome.
3. Let your personality shine in your copywriting because they don’t get to see your smiling faces during checkout.
4. Include accessible elements such as alt tags, proper headings, and close captioning in all your videos.
5. Add a search bar option in the top right which is similar to a salesperson answering the “where can I find…” questions.
6. Use customer reviews to help sell for you.

If your homepage suffers from problems like these, you might consider a Website Review. I record myself going through your website for 60+ minutes, pointing out issues like this. The majority of my time is on your homepage and product pages because that’s what usually needs the most help.