How homepage redesign can improve your business performance amidst COVID-19 crisis

Intro

We get it – now is not the perfect time to talk about how great our websites are. We get that most marketing budgets have been significantly decreased and new launches pushed in time. But hear us out – you don’t need a whole new website to improve your online presence. If your site has good bones, homepage redesign can do wonders for your business, without breaking the bank.

 

How can your business be more competitive online?

The homepage is the key landing page for most websites, and online, the same as anywhere else, you need to put your best face forward. So, if you were to do one thing with your website – have the homepage redesigned. Since most users land there, if the homepage isn’t enticing enough and doesn’t direct users to do what you want them to do, you might lose their interest way before they even see your offering, no matter how amazing it is.

It is especially true for e-commerce, as the economic crisis made the competition for clients much fiercer due to decreased spending. While you might feel like keeping your marketing budget at the bare minimum and hoping for the quick resolution of this whole mess is the best strategy, your competitors might not. Sure, the sales are lower than they were before, but you still can manage to get a return on investment. Plus once the economy starts to bounce back, you’ll want to make sure it’s your business that comes to people’s minds first. This won’t happen if you remain stagnant.

 

The results

Be assured, there are not just empty words. We just gave a homepage refresh to one of our site care clients, Gatsby Jewellery. Despite the fact it’s been only a couple of weeks since we went live, we can already see some great results:

• Homepage bounce rate decreased by 42.70%
• Homepage (as landing page) drop off rate decreased by 30.47%
• Overall E-commerce conversion rate increased by 46.69%

(Data taken from Google Analytics, comparing the first week after the site went live to the average results of the preceding 3 weeks)

How did we do it?

Gatsby Jewellery sells luxury vintage jewellery and felt their website could use a little help from KOTA. When redesigning the Gatsby homepage there were two main aspects to keep in mind:

1. Restructuring the sites content to mirror the client’s primary focus/selling point.

The site’s primary focus is about directing users to browse and buy Gatsby’s engagement rings, therefore this became a prominent feature within the header of the redesign with a call to action immediately giving the users a quick way of searching. The ability to browse and shop jewellery by era was also an important requirement, therefore the new homepage features four image call to actions that take you to the main eras of jewellery Gatsby specialise in.

Along with restructuring product content on the new design, it was important to reflect the approachable nature of the client in order to drive more sales. Therefore more prominence has been given to sections of the site such as “Our Story” and “Why buy from us”, giving the site a more personable touch.

Another important aspect when redesigning a website is to design mobile-friendly, with a large number of visitors reaching the site using a mobile device, it is crucial that you aren’t at a disadvantage and losing customers through a bad mobile experience. With that said, we heavily prioritised the mobile homepage design.

2. Refreshing the visual look of the site to complement the luxury products Gatsby Jewellery specialise in.

One of the most common reasons a website needs redesigning is because it has started to feel outdated. To visually refresh the Gatsby homepage we introduced a modern and cleaner typeface that evokes an elegant and sophisticated feel to the site.

Alongside this, we have kept a similar colour scheme so that the design doesn’t stay too far away from the original look. The new greys and golds convey a softer and purer feel to the design, drawing more attention to the products on show.

Appropriate and high-quality photography is especially important for a business that aims to sell products online. Therefore we proposed the use of imagery that matches the cleaner style of the new homepage design, drawing attention to the main focus of the site, the jewellery.

 

Conclusions

Having your homepage redesigned is a great way to fight the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on your business. This small but important change is a perfect compromise when you don’t have the budget for a whole website revamp, or just want to act swiftly amidst falling sales revenue. E-commerce businesses face especially increased competition now, so give your company a chance to be a step ahead.