Next Wavelength

Full Stack Digital Marketing Agency

Ecommerce

11 eCommerce home page guidelines to boost your sales

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Your eCommerce store’s home page is your storefront and represents the soul of your brand. It shows what your website sells and highlights your call to action.

Your online store home page is usually the highest traffic page on an eCommerce site. Done right, it will entice visitors to stay and explore your products resulting in increased conversions and sales. On the other hand, ignoring eCommerce home page best practices can lead to less engagement and increased bounce rates – thus, you’ll lose customers. This single page is responsible for establishing trust, driving sales, and creating long-lasting customers.

Visual hierarchy is a key principle behind delivering your message clearly to potential buyers. Meanwhile, your call to action offers a clear next step to move visitors beyond the home page and toward your product pages. Together, the most important components when it comes to designing a high converting eCommerce home page. The following 11 guidelines will help you succeed with both.

Keep your design simple

Northernism’s design is very uniquely simple and it stands out by placing images and text on a grid, which isn’t done by a lot of eCommerce stores. Their commerce website has a modern design with plenty of white space and contains simple images, making it feel much luxurious and less crowded.

northernism - uniquely simple design
Northernism – uniquely simple design

Display your Unique Selling Proposition

Ecommerce websites need a clear USP to set them apart from competitors. This means you need to explain to the visitor what you’re offering as soon as they land on your home page.

The tagline from Two Chimps Coffee is displayed soon as you land on their home page and perfectly summarises what they’re selling. “Awesome Coffee. No Nonsense”. They’ve generated a lot of buzz for their clever branding and high-quality coffee, which positions them uniquely in the customer’s mind.

Two Chimp Coffee
Two Chimps Coffee – clear tag line display

Have a visually appealing sale section

It’s important to have a distinct sale section on your homepage. You want the bargain hunters to be able to find it and access it easily. You may want to be bold and big if your promotion is the most important campaign at the time. Or you could be subtle to get a regular stream of discount-loving customers.

Newegg uses a big banner to display their ongoing/upcoming sales promotions.

NewEgg
NewEgg – sales promotions display on home banner

Add a robust search bar for products

Your eCommerce website will be incomplete without a search bar. Adding a search bar will increase your conversions as visitors are most likely going to use the search bar to find products they might need. Many eCommerce stores don’t return relevant search results and you need a search software that can return relevant search results.

Amazon’s search bar is one of the most popular ones.

Amazon - robust search bar
Amazon – robust search bar

Be clear about your shipping and return policy

Shipping and return policies should be displayed clearly on the homepage, either on the right or left side. This is especially if you offer free shipping or if your return policy is better than what your competitors offer.

Kigurumi - clear shipping policy
Kigurumi – clear shipping policy

Display genuine testimonials and reviews from customers

Testimonials turn the spotlight away from the seller to the customer. Potential buyers were once in your customer’s shoes, debating which product to buy, comparing prices etc.

When the visitor hears what your product can do – from someone they can actually relate to – then their trust deepens and their chances of purchasing rises.

Lucky Paws shows its testimonials in a creative and quirky manner.

Lucky Paws - testimonials
Lucky Paws – testimonials

Select higher quality photographs

Peep Laja says that brands must think deeply about how they show what they’re selling. So it’s not only about the photo quality but also about which photos you’ll be selecting.

Personalise your home page

Personalization not only leads to more sales but also increases customer lifetime value. The customer is likely to return to your website if they feel that you understand their needs very well.

You can Autocommerce to recommend relevant products based on the visitor’s location, pages viewed, purchase history. Nordstrom has a great recommendation section.

Nordstrom - personalized shopping
Nordstrom – personalized shopping

Add product images to categories

Visitors want to see what kind of products you offer and your categories section presents an overview. To encourage them to explore further, adding images is very helpful. You can also use thumbnail images for each of your main categories.

Case-Mate does a great job of indicating what kind of product you will find when you click a link.

Case Mate
Case-Mate – categories with product images

Feature your best products

When you feature your best products throughout your homepage, you essentially give customers an idea of what to buy and help them make a purchase decision. You can strategically test which collection of products works best on your homepage in terms of sales. It could also be your best sellers, new products or seasonal products.

Physiq Apparel displays its “Featured Products”

Physiq Apparel
Physiq Apparel – featured products display

Have an intuitive navigation structure

If customers can’t get to pages easily, they might believe that you don’t stock the product they want, and abandon your website. So your homepage navigation, categories and sub-categories should be intuitive and easy to follow.

BooHoo’s navigation makes it very easy for visitors to understand how to discover products and where each link leads.

BooHoo
BooHoo – detailed and well-designed navigation

Wrapping Up

An eCommerce home page performs many tasks, from helping visitors to find and buy products, to highlighting other key information such as shipping and return policy.

Your home page should bring visitors closer to a purchase. You don’t want them hanging around your home page. You want them to browse your product pages and buy.

Hopefully, you’ve found inspiration and will implement some of these guidelines on your own home page. Here is another great article that explains 5 essential elements of good website design.

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Why is digital marketing important for businesses?

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Business owners have to make very important decisions like how much to invest in digital marketing, which social channels to pick, whether to assemble an in-house team or hire an agency. Understanding these issues well is extremely vital to identify your current situation and achieve your goals.

To understand digital marketing importance here are the answers to some of the most common questions about digital marketing.

Why should I care about digital marketing?

Digital marketing is an integral part of how a business operates and caters to its customers. Traditional marketing favored big companies while modern digital marketing allows smaller companies a chance to compete as well. The only catch is having an integrated marketing strategy which will be data-driven and optimised as the campaigns go on. 

Some small businesses have used digital and reached globally – making sales in 3 continents within 18 months and increasing revenue by over 200%. This would not be possible with traditional marketing.

The main benefits of digital marketing include:

  • Your customers are online. Reach out to them where they hang out at the time they can see you.
  • Making it a level playing field for smaller businesses who have the right approach towards digital marketing.
  • Advanced analytics ensure that you know what is working and what is not. An ad on TV costs a lot and you don’t really know what was the outcome of running it.
  • You can track every action immediately – measure the time, money and efforts you spend, cut the losses and double down on what works.
  • The more thorough and thought out your marketing strategy is, the better you can target your audience and personalise the marketing.
  • Can be highly automated saving you time so you can focus on your product and services.
  • When done right, gives extremely high ROI.
  • Flexibility – it can scale as you grow and expand.
  • You can talk to your customers and create brand loyalty and retention. Answer them when they have any queries. 
  • Reviews and testimonials add social proof which helps in persuading skeptical customers.
  • Reach a global marketplace and understand them better.
  • Your competitors are online. You can position yourself in a way to compete with them.

How much time will it take to see the results? Can I get sales immediately?

The short answer? It depends.

On what?

On the nature of product/business, market awareness and demand, competitors, and saturation. Digitally speaking, it depends on your website’s state, how long it has been around, how much content is on it.

Anyone guaranteeing super-quick results needs to take a lie detector test. 

There is no magic formula to determine the exact time it will take to see any sales.

We get it, you want to see immediate results. So do we, but that happens very rarely. Some results might come immediately and some a few months later.

The main reason why many companies don’t taste the fruits of digital marketing is that they stop too soon and pull out when they feel things are not working out. 

Digital agencies rely on experience and processes – not just mere tactics. This way the returns of SEO, content, PPC or any other service can be measured, monitored, and optimised. 

 A good website, branding, SEO, content marketing and social media strategy will work with each other and eventually increase traffic and generate sales.

Which digital channel should I use to sell?

This doesn’t have a straight one-size-fits-all answer.

Yes, you want to get the most out of whichever channel you invest time or money into.

Every business should work on content, SEO, email marketing. 

This is because the price of Google, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn ads fluctuate and not everyone can afford to market on all platforms simultaneously. In 2019, 97% of marketers were investing in paid social. But you can’t just throw some money on paid channels and expect to acquire leads and customers.

The ultimate aim should be to create a multi-channel funnel which will generate leads and sales. This funnel strategy will develop gradually and depend on your budget, keeping in consideration your short-term and long-term goals.

At Next Wavelength we use a lean methodology that starts with the least amount of risk and is experimental in nature. We monitor the campaign, discarding what doesn’t work and improving what does.

How much money should I invest in digital marketing?

Today, most companies are not relying solely on billboards, television ads, flyers or pamphlets. Their prime focus is on digital marketing.

As per, Gartner’s Annual CMO Spend Survey, 61% of CMOs said that they were expecting budgets to increase for 2020.

There is no absolute number. Of course it is easier to justify the cost when someone already wants to scale a marketing funnel that is already generating sales. It becomes extremely uncomfortable for someone to shell out money when setting up digital assets for the first time.

The branding, logo, website, marketing funnel – all require detailed research before they can be executed. Keeping in mind a user-centric approach will make your life much easier. A user-centric approach is when you understand your customer’s needs and objections they may have and work towards providing a smooth experience.

Do your website and landing pages convert users or will they need to be revamped? Do you have access to necessary tools and are they integrated properly?

How much you should invest in digital marketing ultimately boils down to the state of what you already have such as a website, landing pages, tools etc. and where you need to go.

I have already tried digital marketing before and it didn’t work

For many companies, digital marketing doesn’t work out the first time. Here are some of the reasons that might happen:

  • Using a cookie cutter approach and merely copy-pasting templates. Instead of understanding the objectives and developing a custom solution.
  • Not having a consistent look and messaging across the various digital channels
  • Bad communication and not highlighting the benefits of your product.
  • Having little budget and not knowing how to create a process where you start targeting the low hanging fruit, get tangible results and move upwards.
  • Not taking the time to research prospects and customers. This results in poor understanding of the target audience due to flawed buyer persona.
  • Undefined goals, no tracking and measurement of success, unreasonable expectations.
  • Copycat marketers who can’t formulate strategies based on market conditions, but only follow tactics that worked for others (in a certain context).
  • Trying to find unethical means to sales like buying lists containing leads data, blackhat SEO and content tactics, buying fake likes and views etc.
  • Lack of education

Can I do digital marketing by myself?

Yes, and no.

If you have the resources, you can assemble an in-house team for design, development, SEO, content, performance marketing etc. But if you don’t already have a proper digital marketing specialist or experienced HR, you wouldn’t know the right person to hire.

Furthermore, can you afford to pay the costs of hiring and maintaining an entire team? You need to facilitate their training to make sure they are up to date with the latest developments and best practices.

If things go well, that’s awesome. But allow us to play the devil’s advocate here for a moment.

What if you spent all that money, months have passed and you’re not seeing any results? How will you find out the root cause of the problem or who needs to be held accountable?

Maybe you’re thinking of not hiring a team and just doing everything by yourself?

With competitors focusing on content marketing, visual storytelling, demand generation, data analytics – here’s our advice. No one can do it unaccompanied, that’s why you need to work with specialist agencies.

You see, with an agency you get what you pay for. Everything is taken care of and they can help you within a reasonable budget. They have the tools, experience and resources in-house with skilled specialists to use them to meet your target goals. But best of all, when your agreed-upon goals aren’t met, the agency will be held accountable.

Wrap up

So there you go. As you can see, it’s very important to choose experienced specialists to prepare your strategy and decide the tactics to meet your objectives. Digital marketing is extremely necessary to understand your customers’ pain points and how you can help them in their journey. A data-driven approach removes the guesswork out of your marketing.

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The Main Purpose of Your Ad Copy – To Get it Clicked

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The goal of your ad copy is to pre-frame, pre-qualify and pre-sell your ideal customers to click on the ad itself. The goal shouldn’t be to sell – hopefully, you already have your marketing/sales funnel in place which can take care of the actual sales.

Legendary marketer and copywriter Eugene Schwartz wrote in his book Breakthrough Advertising, “The greatest mistake marketers make is trying to create demand.”

“The power, the force, the overwhelming urge to own that makes advertising work, comes from the market itself, and not from the copy. A copy cannot create the desire for a product. It can only take the hopes, dreams, fears and desires that already exist in the hearts of millions of people and focus those already existing desires onto a particular product. This is the copy writer’s task: not to create this mass desire – but to channel and direct it. Actually, it would be impossible for anyone advertiser to spend enough money to actually create this mass desire. He can only exploit it. And he dies when he tried to run against it.”

What you want to do is to identify your ideal customer and delve into the psychology of what motivates them to buy before writing your ad copy – tap into the demand!

Step 1: Identify one major problem/desire your customers want to resolve in their lives

You should be spending as much time on researching the problem/desire as you do on solving it – and find the single, biggest and broadest demand in the market with an urgency behind it.

Step 2: Identify what your product does to resolve this problem/desire

Think through what your product does and list out all the solutions your product can offer or how it can help fulfill the desires of your customers.

Step 3: Identify the market awareness

There are 5 different levels of market awareness, this will help determine what type of copy you need to use in your ads:

Most Aware:

This market already knows what products are out there to solve the problem or fulfill a desire – and they know what it will cost them to get it. A shampoo or a toothpaste can be a good example here. The best thing to do is to create an ‘offer copy’ for this market, discounts etc.

Product Aware:

People are aware of the problem/desire and they know there are products in the market that can solve the problem or fulfill the desire – they just don’t know about your product yet. The copy needs to be educational/informative, explaining the product in the best way possible.

Solution Aware:

Here the market is aware of the problem/desire and they know there is a solution to that, but they don’t know of any products yet. This copy will be focusing on ‘future pacing the solution’ – what will their life be like after having that solution and how they can achieve it with your product.

Problem Aware:

Problem aware as the title suggests, are aware about the problem but they don’t know if there’s even a solution necessarily to solving it yet or solution that can fulfill their desire. Here the copy will lead to the problem itself, outline the solution and conclude with your product.

Unaware:

Unless you’re trying to open a new market, this scenario will probably not apply to you. But the formula applies the same. You need to lead with the message to explain why you think there’s a problem, why the market should care, what the solution is and how your product helps. This is generating demand, and taking Eugene’s advice into account, you will need some serious budget to generate this mass desire.

Step 4: Decide the appeal you want to use in your ad copy

Once you’ve figured out the pain points, there are several ways you can appeal to the market. Such as fear of losing money, greed to earn more money, passion to learn more, skepticism towards a solution they have used before etc.

Final Thoughts

Here’s the framework to build the best message for your ad copy.

  • Identify the problem/desire
  • Figure out how your product can provide the solution
  • Find out the market awareness level
  • Make the right appeal

Now create the story that will sell your product!

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The Super Simple Way To Test Your E-commerce Product Before Launching

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Do you test your E-commerce product before launch to make sure it will be profitable?

You may have dozens of ideas, done a lot of research, perhaps even launched a few stores – and seen poor results. Well, majority of E-commerce businesses end up like this.

They build massive funnels first, and then they try to figure out a way to sell their product just to find out that it doesn’t – after spending a ton of money.

The key to making sales is to offer a product that people are willing to buy!

Although, you do have to invest a little bit of time and money, it’s going to cost substantially lesser to test your E-commerce product first rather than taking the route most people take.

The following steps will help you find out whether there’s an actual demand for your product before you invest in it.

Build a landing page and write your sales copy

Assuming you already have your idea of what you’re going to sell, the first thing you need to do is to create a landing page. There are couple of options here, Leadpages is our favorite.

Then create a basic text-based sales copy for your landing page. If you don’t know how to write one, hire a copywriter to do it for you.

The right copywriter will craft sales copy which will help to increase your conversions (we will get to the conversion part in a bit.)

And if you end up deciding to go with a different E-commerce idea, the copywriter can help you edit the sales copy, so you won’t have to keep repay to create new copy all over again.

Create an opt-in form

From the landing page you will have an ‘Add to cart’ button which you can either link to a new page or a pop-up window. A pop-up is what I recommend unless you have a good reason to send them to another page.

Once you have this set up, the opt-in form copy will be something like “Please enter your name and email address.”

After filling out the form, re-directed the visitor to a page that says “Sorry we’re currently out of stock on this product, we’ll let you know once it becomes available.”

Opt-ins vs ad spend

So this way you’re not actually selling anything – you’re driving the traffic from the ads to the landing page and then measuring the opt-ins.

Basically, you’re considering every opt-in registration as sales in this scenario – hence the conversions. Let’s say your product was worth $100 and you spent $500 on your ads to get 20 opt-ins.

We know in a 2-step process not everyone is going to buy. Since there’s no way to figure out how many will drop-off, we need to assume every opt-in is a buyer.

If you did 20 sales for $100 a piece you essentially earned $2000 in sales with $4 return on your $1 ad spend ($2000/$500.)

This means you have a profit potential with your E-commerce idea, which is a strong indicator that it makes sense for you to build or invest in the product.

If you didn’t get enough opt-ins to cover your ad spend, then you will need to test a new idea.

Create an email list

If you decide that you’re going to build the product, setup your e-store properly and then send an email to your opt-in list saying, “We got the product back in stock, visit the store to order”.

Majority of this list will buy – so you didn’t completely waste the initial ad spend.

If you end up going with a different E-commerce idea, you can promote that new product out to the same email list too, driving them through the top end of your funnel.

If you did 20 sales for $100 a piece you essentially earned $2000 in sales with $4 return on your $1 ad spend.

Either way, you can leverage the email list that you build.

Wrap up

The bulk of your efforts would be in getting the sales copy and landing page right, and running the ads properly.

Click here to download the funnel model to test your E-commerce product.

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