7 eCommerce Homepage Design Elements You Must Have!

Your eCommerce homepage design  is arguably the most important layout, make sure yours has these 7 design element, keep reading.

 

eCommerce Homepage Design

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

 

The homepage is often the first page a potential customer sees on an eCommerce website. That’s why it is so important that the homepage adequately represents the brand in question and offers all the key information a shopper may need.

 

An eCommerce homepage design needs to entice visitors direct visitors, keep visitors browsing and eventually make a purchase. 

 

When creating an eCommerce homepage design for your online store, there are several elements you simply have to include to get the results you’re after. This post is going to look at seven of these vital elements, in no particular order.

Right before we do, it might be beneficial to understand both what your customer and Google are looking for in terms of a good quality landing page.

Your users should have no problems when using your site, and by improving it to adhere to Google’s strict standards your page is going to be a success. Check out the anatomy of a Google friendly website:

 

Next, you should have a good idea of where you need to position design elements on your homepage. Your customers don’t have a lot of patients, so prioritizing information on an eCommerce homepage design can make a huge difference in sales conversions.

There’s a reason advertisers demand that above the fold area too…

According to HubSpot, “55% of visitors spend fewer than 15 seconds on your website.”

A 2014 Google study found that,

ads with viewability defined as 50% of the ad’s pixels being on-screen for one second, ads just above the fold had 73% viewability, whereas ads just below the fold only had 44% viewability.

 

Ok. Now that you have a better understanding of how design elements should be positioned on an eCommerce homepage, let’s get into the elements you have to have.

7 Must-Have Design Elements for Any Ecommerce Homepage

1. A Simple Navigation System

Ecommerce websites tend to house a large number of items. The homepage thus needs to become a roadmap that will help customers find just what they are looking for quickly and effortlessly. 

 

This is why an intuitive but detailed navigation system is a massively important element of any ecommerce store (and not just of its homepage). 

 

You want your menu to be organized in a logical way and make it easy for visitors to understand where they can find each item. Name your categories using the words they are most likely to use, and don’t try to be punny or witty. This will help you rank better as well. 

 

Which categories you choose to highlight and whether you have a mega-menu or several drop-down menus will be up to you and the size of your store. Just make sure that no product is buried too deep and impossible to find. 

 

Sola Wood Flowers has a great menu you can take a look at. It is easy to understand and navigate, and by selecting the “popular” or “new” option, visitors can quickly be shown products in a particular order. 

ecommerce navigation

Source: solawoodflowers.com

2. A Search Bar

Search is another vital part of every eCommerce website. No matter how well-structured your website hierarchy is, customers will still often need (and want) to look for a specific item. 

 

This is where your search bar can make a huge difference. You don’t want it to be difficult to locate, and you want it to be a part of your main menu, if at all possible. 

 

As for the design itself, you can stick to the simple-looking glass button that will later expand into a bar, or you can use a bit more screen real estate and have the actual bar at all times. 

 

Most importantly, of course, you need to ensure that the search works and that typing in a specific or a more general query will fetch your visitors what they want. Tagging your products with the right keywords can help you there. 

 

Dress Forms USA has a good search bar you can take note of. It’s a clearly visible bar that visitors won’t ever miss, and it also comes with drop-down results every time you type a query. This improves UX even further, as customers will instantly be able to compare products and prices. 

Source: dressformsusa.com

3. Captivating Imagery

Ecommerce homepages are all about capturing the attention of your audience and making them want to keep browsing your website. While you will never be able to show all of your products (unless you sell less than a dozen of them), your aim is to show the best of the best and your most popular items. 

 

Needless to say, the images need to be of top quality. They should also aim to evoke a specific emotion, one that you want your customers to walk away with from your brand. Ideally, you will also show either your products being used or satisfied users after they have used the product. 

 

Here’s a great example from Victor Pet Food. They have certainly shown their different products, but they’ve also shown happy dogs with their owners. That speaks about the quality of their pet food and the kind of life you’re giving your pet if you choose their products.

ecommerce photography

Source: victorpetfood.com

 

Aim to tell a story with your imagery, and tie each image to a specific message and emotion you’re trying to communicate. 

4. A Highlights Section

Your homepage is also the ideal place to create a highlights section. This is where you can showcase either your newest products, the products that have the best reviews, or even an item that you are low on stock of and that you want to clear as soon as possible.

 

Switching this section around often also makes your homepage more interesting and ensures even your regular customers have something new to see. It will help you direct traffic down different funnels and sales avenues when necessary. Plus, it gives you the chance to test out different recommendations and see what your customers like best. 

Bliss does this very well. They have a new arrivals section near the top of their homepage, and they also tend to highlight one product category or another further down the page. They do often change what they are promoting, so you can always expect to see a product you may not have known they carried.

5. Some Social Proof

Social proof is another important part of an eCommerce homepage design, as it allows you to improve your trustworthiness and credibility in the most natural and organic way possible. 

 

How you choose to integrate it will depend on what your target audience wants to hear from you and where you believe the best place for reviews and testimonials might be. 

 

There is literally no wrong way to do it, though. You can highlight it in your hero section, or you can add it to the bottom of your page if you believe there are more important elements to share beforehand. 

 

Take a look at Gili. They have an “as seen in” section in their hero section, but they also feature reviews nearly at the bottom of the page. 

social proof

Source: gilisports.com

 

You can do the exact opposite and still attract the kinds of clicks you want. Just make sure you consider your customers’ interests when determining the kind and hierarchy of your social proof. 

6. A Newsletter Sign-up Form

Your eCommerce homepage design also needs to feature a newsletter sign-up form. While it may not be the most important CTA on your homepage, you still want to make sure that your audience is able to sign up, or at least become aware of the fact that you have one.

Most brands like to put this form in their footer, which is a very safe and expected choice. Ozark Armament does the same in a very unobtrusive way, so you can simply follow their blueprint and create something quite similar.

newsletter signup

Source: ozarkarmament.com

 

You can still promote the newsletter further up the page, but add the form where users expect to see it, and they will be much more likely to convert.

7. Company Details

Finally, don’t forget that your eCommerce homepage design also needs to feature all the important company details, ideally in your footer. You should also make sure to link out to your privacy policy and terms and conditions, as well as a “returns and delivery” page. 

 

To improve UX and to further deepen your connection with your audience, you also want to include all the relevant information they will care about here. This can be your commitment to the planet, your pride in your customer service, anything that makes your brand what it is and differentiates it from the competition.

 

Bohemian Traders, for example, mention their inclusive sizing in their footer, and it instantly makes them different from all the other similar clothing brands out there. Their footer is also well organized and gives you their social links, the newsletter sign-up form, and all the important links as well. 

company details

Source: bohemiantraders.com

Final Thoughts  

Include these seven elements in your eCommerce homepage design to help ensure that your customers find everything they need easily. As a result, you’ll improve the user experience on your online store and, ultimately, your conversion rates.