Using 10 years of design experience to help handmade businesses build websites into business assets.
The homepage is tricky
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If each page of your website is supposed to have a single goal... How do you define a goal for your homepage? Many people would consider your homepage the front door of your shop, but that’s not quite accurate. Your customers usually find your product page first. Think about how you market your art. Are you more frequently linking to a specific product or are you linking to the homepage? Most organic traffic will also likely go to your product page (because they were searching for a type of product and not your brand specifically). Whether it’s natural or marketing, most routes do not lead to your homepage (unless you’re a one product store). If your product page is the front door, what does that make your homepage? It’s an opportunity to build more trust. You can use your homepage to show off your latest pieces, your current promotions, customer reviews, and more. You can use hints from what you know they’re looking for: Are they looking for meticulous crafting? A connection to nature? An expert in your field? An attention to detail helps your business seem professional and more trustworthy. A customer will never checkout from your site if they don’t trust you. Take every opportunity to show what a great artist and business owner you are. Loki knows those late nights can be tiring, so make sure you're getting enough rest. Have a great day! |
Ed, Cagebreakers Creative
Using 10 years of design experience to help handmade businesses build websites into business assets.
Customers will leave a site in 3-5 seconds if they don’t find what they’re looking for. (This also includes loading time, so be careful!) You can use tools like BrowserStack to test your site in many different sizes without needing individual devices. Check your analytics to see which sizes your customers use most and then test your pages against those sizes first. What does a customer first see when opening up one of the pages you use in your marketing? Are they able to see your product...
There are a lot of moving parts when it comes to building and maintaining a website. One way I reduce overwhelm is asking myself: What is the goal of this specific page? (And it should be ONE goal per page. Minus a couple exceptions.) For example: The product page’s goal is to get the customer to Add to Cart. Or at least... That’s your goal. Your customer’s goal is different. They’re using your product page to determine if your product is the one they want to buy. To achieve your goal, you...
Last time we discussed using domain forwarding to help build traffic to your new site before even building one. Eventually, you will need to build your independent shop. It can be overwhelming. There’s a lot to learn. It takes time. What if no one uses it? You can avoid much that stress by building out this business asset in 3 steps that you can take at your own pace. Step 1: Like we talked about previously: Buy a domain and forward it to your Etsy shop. Use that domain only in your marketing...