6 Homepage Design Tips for Online Businesses

As more businesses turn to online models, competition is increasing. Higher competition means that, for a business to be successful, it needs to find a way to differentiate itself and attract and convert visitors. Web design entails using the right colors, fonts, textual content, and graphics to convince visitors to complete a purchase. So, how do you design a homepage that leads customers toward converting?

Keep it Simple

A foundational rule web designers have to follow when creating eCommerce homepages is to keep things simple. There are websites where adding more elements such as banner ads, colors, and popups are required, but when used for online business websites, they take away from the whole point of building the website.

Think about everything you have on the site and remove anything that would be a distraction. If you are building a landing page for a product instead of a homepage that showcases different products, ensure the textual content stands out.

Use High-Quality Images

Numerous studies have shown that using relevant images on a homepage can increase conversions by up to 40%. No one wants to buy a product without seeing it, and you need to show them through your creative use of high-quality images.

Hire a professional to take and compose different angles of your products. High-quality images that showcase the product(s) in different ways build trust and confidence, both of which make customers more likely to complete a purchase.

Use Minimal Design

In some cases, your homepage is built for only one thing. That may be to get your visitors the information they need or to direct them to where they can get that information. In such cases, minimal design is the best way to go about it. A great example of a website that does this is Unscramble’s website. Unscramble is a word unscrambler that helps you find words given a set of letters.

They put their tool at the top of the page, and text that explains what the tool does below that. Visitors who just want to use the tool can do so at the top, and those who want to learn more about it can do so below. Such a homepage is effective because it manages to do what it was built for without using unnecessary distractions that would make it unappealing.

Ensure Your Homepage is Scannable

Most people read about 20% of the content that is on a homepage, especially on eCommerce websites. People instead scan the page looking for the information they need. Because of this, you need to make your content scannable.

Do this by breaking up your content using sections with enough whitespace around them, bullet points wherever you can, shorter sentences, enough headings and subheadings, and bold text to draw attention to key information.

Think Like a Visitor

When designing a website for your online business, put yourself in your visitors’ shoes. Think about how they would use your website, what paths they would take to get to a product and to complete a sale and think what would make their experience better.

Great and intuitive navigation, images, and textual content that showcase the product and proper product categorization and organization are a must.

Other things to think about are the fonts you use, textual contrast, and font sizes. All these affect usability and visitors who have difficulty navigating your homepage will not visit any of your inner or product pages. You may want to invest in a user experience design company to make sure that your visitors will have a pleasant time while browsing your website.

Make Your Calls to Action Clearer

It does not matter if you want people to leave their contact information or purchase a product; you need to make your calls to action obvious. People are also much more likely to do something if they are told instead of asked. Use this to your advantage when creating calls to action.

For an online or eCommerce business, the homepage on their website is crucial. The design should not only be clear and functional, it should also encourage people to engage with the business or convert as the case may be.