Feature your top categories right below the fold

A sign post to direct your users

You have introduced your store and praised it to high heaven. Your shoppers know who you are, what you do, the benefits of buying from you, and are just beginning to trust you. What next?

Many visitors on the homepage don’t know what they want to buy. Those who do use the search bar. A large majority of them have a vague idea of what they want but haven’t made up their minds yet. You need to help them decide by shepherding them further down the sales funnel.

A good way of helping them choose where to go is by showing some categories they can open. You should recommend your bestselling categories as they’re more likely to find what they like there. Three to five of them should be enough.

My Recommendations

Place your featured categories below the hero section, or at least high up on the homepage.
The other section that I usually recommend below the hero section is social proof or credibility components.
Also ensure you have high-quality images for those category thumbnails.

Two Sections Instead of One?

One of the things that I find interesting about IKEA’s site is that they feature three categories below the fold.

Then they have a section ‘Shop by Category’ lower on the homepage. The three featured categories are equivalent to a link bar on mobile. Normally I recommend having something like their ‘Shop by Category’ right below the fold, but I like how they’ve featured three to start with and have a longer list later on.