8.5 KiB
S05|10 - how to optimize your homepage
Links
Notes
Description
We’ve got one more page in our store to optimize and that is our homepage. For our homepage, we want to expand it out so that they’re at least 400 words. The tricky part with this is that the theme Pop we are using isn’t the easiest to do that with. The Pop theme looks great but it’s highly visual and the homepage setting leaves us a lot of room to add text.
You may not have thought about this, but the featured products on your homepage do indeed count towards our word count. So what we’re going to do is we are going to add 16 featured products to our homepage. And then we’re going to add a title to that and that will about 150 words to our homepage.
To supplement that, we’re going to add two blocks of text. One before our featured products and one after our featured products. The first block of text will sell the items in our store. When you create a website copy, be sure to include how the products will change your customer’s life. So for the first block of text, this is what you should focus on.
The second block of text will go underneath the featured products is going to be a block about how you care about your customers’ experience, shipping the items as soon as possible and things like that.
We’re going to splitting the text into two different sections so that we don’t just have a one big ugly block of text on the page.
After that, we’re going to be going into the Image Gallery and updating the image alt data for each image.
If you’re following the steps in the E-Comm Clubhouse, as part of Step 3, we updated the homepage and added an image slider. If you haven’t been following along and want to see how to do that, I recommend you go that video and watch how to do it.
So let’s get started!
So in Step 3, we have created a very simple homepage like this.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex01a-simple_homepage.jpeg
There are 12 products here on the homepage but we don’t really have any text. This is not bound to work. If we want to get SEO traffic, we need to have our primary keyword so we need to have more text on here.
The first thing we need to do is to come to Products then click Collections. Click ‘Create Collection’.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex02a-create_collection.jpeg
You can name the collection Homepage or whatever you like, it doesn’t really matter. Then choose Manual. Click ‘Save’.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex02b-edit_and_save.jpeg
Once done, click Save. Then we will add 16 products. So choose the 16 products that you like the most by clicking the checkbox beside the product. And then click ‘Done’.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex03a-choose_16_products.jpeg
Then you want to click Sort, then choose Manually.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex03b-choose_sorting.jpeg
Choose and drag your most exciting products to be at the top of your list because this will show at the very top of your homepage. So sort them in whatever you think is most exciting to the least exciting. The most important of all is to have the first 4 products to be the products that are the most exciting because those are the products that the customers are most likely to see because they’re going to be in four rows of four. So at least have the first four exciting. So go through and manually sort them and make sure to click Save.
Now that we have the homepage that we need, go to Online Store and click Customize.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex04a-customize_store.jpeg
Now come to Featured Collection. Then click on Change.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex04b-change_featured.jpeg
You want to have them with 4 rows and you want to have the title and the price to show always.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex04c-set_rows.jpeg
Now we want to add a title for this collection set. I’ve already written a title for this so I’ll just copy and paste it here. Click ‘Save’.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex04d-set_title_and_save.jpeg
Go back. Next, we’re going to click on Add Section.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex05a-add_section.jpeg
Choose Rich Text then click ‘Select’.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex05b-rich_text.jpeg
Once you’re done with that, you want to go back then drag the Rich Text box under the slideshow box. Click the Rich Text box again.
Now, I’ve written out a copy already and I’ve checked the total word count which is 260 words. So it’s going to push us to our 400 words goal. Now, let’s copy and paste the copy in. Select ‘small’ for the text size then click ‘Save’.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex05c-add_desc.jpeg
Sometimes it can really be a bit tricky to figure out how you are going to talk for 100 to 150 words worth. So this is a store that sells novelty coffee items, to talk about that is kind of tricky to make it 100 to 150 words in length. What are you going to say? One of the easiest ways to extend is to talk about the different items and stuff and mentioning the items and saying who they are for is a great way to extend it.
Now, we’re going to add a Rich Text block again. We’re going to add a section where I talk about customer service. So do the same process, copy and paste the headline and text from your copy.
You don’t have to be talking about coffee mugs all the time, you can spend some time talking about customer service because it is very relevant. One interesting that you’ll notice is that I’ve added some emojis.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex05d-emojis.jpeg
Emojis are something you don’t want to overuse as they can make you look unprofessional. I’m not overusing them but I am adding them to make my copy appear more personal.
Once you’ve copy and paste the text, make sure the Rich Text block is placed under the featured products, if not just drag to the correct position. And there you have it, we have added our text there.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex05e-place_rich_text.jpeg
Now, we’ve got a 400 word-count on the site which is good. But we want to add in our image alt data as well. So go to the Slideshow and click on the first image.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex06a-open_alt_image.jpeg
Then click Edit. Then put your primary keyword in the Image Alt Text box. Click ‘Save’.
Then click ‘Save’ again for our theme customization.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex06b-add_and_save.jpeg
Then do the same process with the other images in the slideshow. Just use secondary keywords. Once you’re done with this, then click Save.
Now, there’s one more thing that we want to do. We’re going to back to our admin area then click on Preferences. This is the area where we are going to add our homepage title and meta description. Remember, your homepage title is important. Google does look at this to rank for the keywords. So the keyword I am targeting is coffee gifts and I’ve created the title and description already.
file:../../_share/media/img/step_05/lesson_10/ex07a-homepage_title_and_desc.jpeg
Once you’ve done that, don’t forget to click Save.
There you have it, you have now optimized your homepage!