The homepage is often the first page a new visitor sees, and it sets the tone for the whole store. When I review a homepage, I look at it on a phone first, because that's where most visitors are. Below are the 8 problems I find most often, and the signs that tell you your homepage has them.
Contents (8)
1. The hero slider slows everything down #
The hero, the first thing a visitor sees, is usually the most important part of the homepage. On many stores, it's a slider with several large images, often powered by a third-party slider script or app. The phone has to download multiple big images and extra code before the visitor sees anything useful.
Sliders also rarely work as intended: most visitors only ever see the first slide.
Signs this is happening on your homepage:
- Your hero is a slider or carousel with several large images or videos.
- The hero image appears late on mobile, or the page jumps when the slider loads.
- PageSpeed Insights shows a slow Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) on your homepage.
Why it costs you sales: If the first screen loads slowly, many visitors leave before they see a single product.
Read more: Why is my Shopify store so slow? 9 causes I find in speed audits →
2. The hero doesn't match why buyers came #
Every visitor arrives with a reason: a specific product, a gift, a problem to solve, an offer they saw in an ad. A beautiful hero image with a vague slogan doesn't help them. In a few seconds, they should understand what you sell, who it's for, and where to click next.
Signs this is happening on your homepage:
- Your hero headline is a brand slogan that doesn't say what you sell.
- There's no clear path for the main types of buyers (by category, need, occasion or brand).
- Visitors from your ads land on the homepage and have to search for the product they clicked on.
Why it costs you sales: A visitor who doesn't quickly find a path to what they want leaves to find it somewhere else.
3. Trust signals are missing from the first screen #
New visitors decide quickly whether a store looks legit. Your homepage should show early why buyers can trust you: reviews and ratings, how many customers you've served, shipping and returns promises, guarantees, or where you've been featured.
Many homepages hide all of this at the very bottom, or leave it out completely.
Signs this is happening on your homepage:
- No reviews, ratings or customer numbers appear near the top.
- Free shipping, returns or guarantees are only mentioned in the footer or policy pages.
- Nothing on the homepage shows that real customers buy from you.
Why it costs you sales: A visitor who doesn't trust the store won't start shopping, no matter how good the products are.
4. Too many sections #
It's tempting to add one more section: another banner, another collection grid, another slider, an Instagram feed, a video, a brand story. Each section adds weight to the page, and together they make the homepage long, slow and hard to scan, especially on a phone.
A strong homepage keeps only the sections that help buyers decide, removes duplicates, and keeps each section tight.
Signs this is happening on your homepage:
- On mobile, you have to scroll through many screens to reach the footer.
- Several sections show similar things (multiple collection grids, multiple banners with the same message).
- Some sections were added for a campaign and never removed.
Why it costs you sales: More sections mean a slower page and more noise between the buyer and the product they want.
5. Designed for desktop, not mobile #
Many homepages are designed and approved on a big desktop screen, then simply shrink on mobile. Images made for a wide desktop banner are often too large for phones, crop badly, or push the important content far down the screen.
Most of your traffic is on mobile, so the mobile version needs to be designed on purpose: images sized and cropped for small screens, text that's readable, and buttons that are easy to tap.
Signs this is happening on your homepage:
- Banner images on mobile are cropped awkwardly, or the text in them is too small to read.
- The same large desktop images load on phones.
- On a phone, the first screen shows mostly image and very little useful information.
Why it costs you sales: If the homepage is hard to use on a phone, you're losing most of your visitors.
6. Mobile navigation is hard to use #
On mobile, the menu is how buyers find what they came for. Many stores have menus with too many items, vague names that only make sense to the owner, or several levels that are hard to tap through on a small screen.
Signs this is happening on your homepage:
- Your mobile menu has a long list of items, or several nested levels.
- Menu names are internal or creative names instead of what buyers call your products.
- Important categories or best sellers are hard to reach from the mobile menu.
Why it costs you sales: If buyers can't find their way in a few taps, they leave.
7. Search can't find what buyers type #
Many buyers go straight to the search bar. If it returns nothing, or the wrong products, they assume you don't sell what they want.
A good store search is ready for how buyers actually search: synonyms (so "couch" also finds "sofa", or "tee" finds "t-shirt"), common misspellings, and boosted products for popular search terms so the best matches show first. Shopify's own Search & Discovery app supports synonyms and product boosts, so in many cases this doesn't need another heavy search app.
Signs this is happening on your homepage:
- Searching for common words or plurals returns no results or odd results.
- Your search is hard to find on mobile (hidden behind an icon nobody notices).
- You've never looked at what visitors search for on your store.
Why it costs you sales: Visitors who search usually know what they want. A bad search turns your most ready buyers away.
8. The newsletter form adds weight to every page #
Collecting emails is important, and many stores use Klaviyo for it. But the default way to add a sign-up form or pop-up often injects extra scripts on every page, which slows the store down, especially on mobile.
A lighter approach is a custom sign-up form or pop-up built into the theme that sends subscribers to Klaviyo, so you keep the email capture without the extra weight.
Signs this is happening on your homepage:
- Your newsletter form or pop-up comes from an injected script.
- The pop-up appears before the page finishes loading, or covers the page on mobile.
- PageSpeed Insights lists your email or pop-up tool under third-party code.
Why it costs you sales: A pop-up that slows down or blocks the page can cost you the sale it was meant to win.
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