8 Conversion Rate Optimization Tips for Your Shopify Homepage

The rule “don’t judge a book by its cover” rarely applies to ecommerce shoppers. The reality is most online consumers will instantly determine whether they can trust your business, brand, and products, by evaluating your homepage. If you don’t make the right first impression, your customers could simply hit the back button, never visiting your store again. 

Although there’s more to an amazing Shopify store than a compelling homepage, it’s worth remembering that this single page is the most visited location on most Shopify sites. It’s the first introduction your customers are going to get to your company, and it needs to make an impact.

Fortunately, with the right strategies, you can optimize your homepage not just for user experience, but for better conversions too. Here are some of the best strategies you can use to improve the sales potential of your Shopify store, by editing your homepage. 

1. Personalize the Homepage for Each Visitor

Displaying a different version of your Shopify homepage to every visitor might sound impossible, but there are apps that can give you more control over personalized content. Though these tools won’t necessarily change how your store is laid out, they can present different product suggestions, recommendations, and offers to various segments of your audience.

For instance, you can use tools to alter the offers your customers see based on the keywords they use to find your store, or the links they click to visit your website. You can also use intelligent tools to gather information about a customer’s previous browsing history on your website. 

This means you’ll be able to offer more unique recommendations to customers based on what they’ve looked at in the past. It’s even possible to save the items customers added to their basket on previous shopping trips, and offer product recommendations based on that information.

2. Make Navigation Simple

Your homepage might be one of the most important parts of your Shopify store, but it’s probably not where customers are going to make a purchase. That means you need to make it simple for customers to navigate from your home page, to your product pages, and finally your checkout. 

There are plenty of ways you can simplify navigation from your Shopify homepage. Sticky menu bars, for instance, will stay with your customers as they scroll down through your page, making it easy to access your product pages and other environments in just one click. 

https://resources.storetasker.com/shopify-examples/aether-menu 

You can also help customers to find the products they want by creating category sections on your homepage, where you showcase some of your product categories, with high-quality imagery, to help boost purchasing intent. 

It’s also worth creating a clean and easy-to-understand footer for your store, with links to the pages your customers might want to visit, such as your FAQ or contact page. 

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3. Use CTAs Effectively

Call to Action buttons are some of the most important tools for conversion rate optimization (CRO). They help to guide your customers to a specific action, whether that’s visiting a certain product page, or clicking on a link to check out your latest sale. 

Usually, it’s a good idea to place a CTA button above the fold. This should be the button you use to draw attention to your latest products, best-selling items, or deals. You can also use CTAs throughout your homepage to help customers navigate to specific product categories or pages. 

Make sure your CTAs are easy to see and use on all devices. This means choosing a mobile-optimized theme on Shopify, and working with color palette and design strategies to draw attention to the buttons you want your customers to interact with.

A/B testing the copy on your CTAs, as well as their color, design, and placement, can help you to determine which buttons drive the most sales for your business. 

4. Take Advantage of Pop-Ups

While Pop-ups have a reputation for being annoying and disruptive at times, they can also be extremely valuable when it comes to optimizing your conversion rates. Pop-ups can rapidly grab your customer’s attention, convincing them to sign up for your newsletter, take advantage of a new deal, or just check out your latest product collection. 

https://resources.storetasker.com/shopify-examples/aura-hero-popup

You can even use pop-ups to leverage psychological sales strategies like “FOMO”. For instance, showing a small notification on the bottom of your screen whenever someone makes a purchase is a great way to entice customers to buy, while enhancing your store with social proof. 

If pop-ups seem too annoying for your customers, welcome bars can be just as effective. They help you share coupon codes, sales, promotions, and other insights with your customers as soon as they arrive on your site, without getting in the way of the shopping experience. 

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5. Showcase Social Proof

Adding social proof to virtually any aspect of your Shopify website can help to increase sales. Customers want evidence that they can trust your business, and reviews, testimonials, and pictures from other customers are an excellent way to improve your credibility. 

Highlighting five-star reviews from other customers on your homepage immediately tells your customers they’re dealing with a reputable brand. Shopify store owners can use apps like Yotpo or Product Reviews to embed reviews directly into their site. 

https://resources.storetasker.com/shopify-examples/misfits-review 

Alongside reviews and star ratings, you can also consider experimenting with a carousel of quotes from reputable companies, or social media feeds. A social media feed connected to a channel like Instagram can help you showcase up-to-date user-generated content to your customers as soon as they arrive on your store. 

6. Optimize Your Store’s Performance

While there are various things that can prevent a customer from clicking the “buy button” on your products, a poorly performing website is often the top culprit. People don’t feel like they can trust stores that don’t load quickly, or constantly throw up error pages. 

What’s more, if your customers encounter performance issues after just clicking on your homepage, the chances are they’ll get frustrated and hit the back button before they have a chance to buy anything. Making sure your store is optimized for user-experience and speed is a must. 

You can use free tools like the Google PageSpeed Insight tool to check how well your pages are performing, and get useful insights into how you can improve loading times. You can also consider using apps and tools to reduce performance issues, like image compression tools, or CDNs.

7. Showcase Your Most Exciting Products

While you might not be able to highlight all of your products on your Shopify homepage, you should be drawing attention to at least some of your best sellers. Your homepage gives you an excellent opportunity to show buyers what makes your business special. 

Displaying your best-sellers, latest releases, and limited edition products on your homepage helps you to take advantage of your customer’s purchasing intent, and propel them towards the checkout. 

There are plenty of different ways to draw attention to products on your homepage. You might use a carousel to highlight images of your items. Or you could use a header video or image to show off some of your most exciting offers. 

8. Optimize Your Design

An excellent UI/UX is an essential part of increasing conversion rates for your Shopify store. While a great navigation menu, easy-to-click call to action buttons and fast loading times will improve customer experiences, it’s worth thinking about the design of your website too. 

Customers are far more likely to trust a website with an attractive homepage. With that in mind, it’s worth making sure you choose a high-quality theme, and customize your site to perfectly represent your brand and business. Think about:

• Accessibility: Is your site attractive to all users, no matter whether they have disabilities or not? Do you use a high level of contrast in your color palette, and have you chosen attractive but legible font for your website copy?
• Structure: Is it easy to scroll through your site without being overwhelmed by too much clutter? Is everything spaced neatly, and placed in the right location? Does your homepage naturally draw attention to your CTA buttons?
• Visuals: Can you enhance the visual appeal of your Shopify homepage with eye-catching visuals, like high-definition photographs and videos? If you’re using a lot of visual elements, make sure they don’t slow down your store. 

Making the Most of your Shopify Homepage

All of the tips above should help you to create a more impactful, valuable Shopify homepage. However, it’s worth making sure you A/B test any changes you make to your website design, so you can consistently optimize the performance of your website. 

Remember, there are also various apps available on the Shopify marketplace that can help with conversion rate optimization. Tools like Privy are great for pop-ups, email, and SMS marketing, while Blyp can help you track hidden sales opportunities. You can even leverage platforms like HotJar, for analytics that help you better understand user behaviors. 

And beyond apps - you can look to Shopify themes which are optimized for conversions.

Of course, if you don’t want to tackle the complexities of conversion rate optimization alone, there’s always the option to hire a Shopify Expert too. Storetasker experts can help you to design the perfect home page, specially suited to driving conversions. Get in touch to find your Shopify expert today. 

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