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The homepage is the face of your brand, and every day you have to show it to hundreds of potential customers with different tastes. So, a little ‘makeup’ will never hurt to present the best version of your store to the world.
For Magento Commerce users, the platform provides useful features to create a fully functional homepage. However, each store owner has their own vision as to what page will attract their target customers and prompt them to further shopping.
So, let us share our Magento design expertise accumulated during 8 years and guide you through the road of creating your perfect Magento 2 homepage!
General Design Guidelines
Keep it simple
Some retailers can’t differentiate important features and try to pack everything on their homepage. Inadvertently, they end up with an overcomplicated page where customers get overwhelmed with loads of information and an unintuitive design also doesn’t provide them a clear direction. Inevitably, customers lose interest in such a store right at the homepage and walk away.
Keep it informative
When landing on your homepage, buyers want to know the most fundamental data about your shop. Your product line, main menu categories, discount programs, new trends, and contact details like phone numbers or email – this information must be available right away.
Besides, you can win customer trust and raise their engagement by integrating your store with social accounts and promoting them on your homepage. Thus, your visitors can follow you on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and later advocate your store there if they feel satisfied with the buying experience. Among all, Instagram is probably the most helpful to ecommerce businesses. For Magento, there are ready solutions to connect an Instagram account to a web store. For example, with Magento 2 Instagram Shop by Magenest, you will be able to add your Instagram photos with tagged products to the homepage. Your customers won’t need to search for the product they like in the catalog and will buy more on impulse.
Keep it unique
Try to stand out among hundreds of competing stores. It’s great when your UX and UI design team starts with competitor research so that they can come up with something eye-catching and distinctive, but by no means eccentric in the bad sense of the word.
If you offer customer benefits (be it a loyalty program or a time-limited discount campaign), make sure to promote them on your homepage. Whenever customers anticipate a good buy, they feel very enthusiastic to see what this web store can offer.
Design smartly
All of the aforementioned rules are useless if your homepage doesn’t have a proper structure. By rule, a page is divided into two parts: above the fold and below the fold. Above the fold is the section that appears immediately, without scrolling, when customers land on the page. Logically, below the fold is the part that visitors need to scroll down to see.
Along with traditional above-the-fold information like a logo and the main menu, you’d better place the main gains you offer, such as fresh deals, higher on the page to catch visitors instantly. In the below-the-fold part, you are free to promote brands and categories, new arrivals or best deals, a blog or your recent collaboration, and more. At the footer, you can add basic contact information and social network integration.
Homepage Design Components
While on the homepage, 86% of visitors want a quick insight into your store's products or services and more than half of them are looking for your contact information. You need to show the right information to keep potential buyers stay on the website.
The main menu with an organized list of products and a search bar are must-have features on any homepage. While the former draws a picture for visitors about what you’re selling and helps them navigate easily, the latter allows for a targeted quick search.
CTAs (call-to-actions) can capture the eye of users through various types such as buttons, banners or popups. Unlike a detailed description, CTAs with impressive design and a concise message about new arrivals, promotions, discounts or sales can quickly charm the pickiest buyers. 70% of small online stores don’t take advantage of CTAs on their homepage and with that, lose on sales.
The Sign Up and Login buttons are obligatory for ecommerce websites in general and surely must be present on the homepage. The credentials your customers leave, such as an email address or a phone number, is an excellent way to engage with them after the purchase. Newsletter subscription works just the same – even without a purchase this time, customers can further receive emails about member-only programs to catch up with your activities.
It’s also important to have illustrative elements on your homepage as images speak louder than words. A photo slider to show your popular or on-sale products can quickly spark customer interest.
Last but not least, your store’s information is one thing you can’t ignore. Your visitors might seek the assistance of your team or they might need trust builders to feel safe purchasing online with you. Along with your contact information, tell customers about your company, its history, values and people standing behind.
Wrapping up
There’s an idea that a homepage is usually underestimated compared to product details or check-out pages. But in fact, visitors pay great attention to the homepage, and it’s usually the place where they decide whether to trust a company. This is why retailers have to put much effort into creating a homepage that is both functional and engaging. We hope that our tips will help you create a perfect homepage that visitors will fall in love with at first sight!
From strategy development to auditing an online store, we look forward to expertly support your each step in Magento development to bring you to the top.
