How to design a homepage that converts

The homepage section model that converts: hero, USP bar, category tiles, bestsellers, social proof, blog teaser, newsletter — in that order.

Written By Bas den Hoed

Most reseller homepages try to be a catalog. They aren't. A homepage is a wegwijzer — a signpost that sends each visitor type into the right corner of the shop within a few seconds. This article gives you a section-by-section blueprint for a plant-shop homepage that converts, plus the seasonal logic that keeps it fresh year-round.

💡 The #1 mistake: trying to show everything on the homepage. The homepage is not your catalog — it's a signpost. Pick one hero message, three to six category tiles, and stop. If you can't say what each section is for, it doesn't belong there.

What the homepage actually does

Three visitor types land on your homepage: someone who searched your brand and wants reassurance they're in the right place, someone who clicked an ad and needs to be steered to a category, and a returning visitor scanning for what's new. None of them want to read a wall of text or browse 40 products. They want a fast answer to "is this shop for me, and where do I click next?"

That's the entire job. Reassure (this is a real plant shop, here's the proof). Direct (here are the obvious paths). Refresh (here's what's new this week or this season). Everything else belongs on a deeper page.

The seven-section blueprint

A homepage that converts uses no more than seven sections, in this order. Mobile uses the same sections in the same order — stacked, not shrunk.

1. Hero — one message, one CTA

The hero is the single most-seen pixel block on your shop. Treat it that way. One image (or short video loop), one headline, one CTA button. Not three rotating slides — slide-two and slide-three get clicked roughly 1% as often as slide-one, and the rotation actively hurts conversion on mobile.

The hero message should match the moment, not the brand statement. In May: "Geraniums and patio plants — delivered Wednesday." In November: "Christmas trees, ordered today, here Friday." A static "Welcome to GreenShop" hero is wallpaper.

2. USP bar — three to four promises

A thin strip directly under the hero with the three or four reasons people buy from you instead of the next shop. For a plant reseller these are usually: delivery promise (e.g. "Ordered before 14:00 = tomorrow at home"), free-shipping threshold, returns/guarantee, and one differentiator (sustainably sourced, family-run, plant-care help included). Icons + one line of text per promise. No paragraphs.

3. Three to six category tiles

This is the section that does the actual routing work. Three to six tiles, each leading to a major collection: Houseplants, Garden plants, Gift plants, Sale, Bundles, Seasonal. Tiles need their own photography — the supplier studio image doesn't read as a category at thumbnail size.

Why three to six and not "Shop all"? A single "Shop all" button on the homepage converts about a third as well as four well-chosen tiles. Visitors don't browse 600 SKUs from a single button — they pick a path and start there. Give them paths.

4. Bestsellers (or new arrivals)

A horizontal row of six to eight products, hand-picked or auto-populated from sales data. Bestsellers do double duty: they signal what's good (social proof by selection), and they give visitors an immediate "I want that one" moment without opening a category. Rotate this row at least once a month so returning visitors see something new.

Aggregate review score (Klantenvertellen / Trustpilot / Google), one or two recent customer photos, or a press logo strip if you have it. One section, not three. Numbers convert ("4.8 / 5 from 2,143 reviews") better than vague badges.

6. Inspiration / blog teaser

Two or three blog-post or guide cards: "Best plants for low-light rooms", "How to overwinter your patio plants", "Pet-safe houseplant guide". This section earns its keep on SEO (internal links to long-form content) and gives the "just browsing" visitor a soft path. Skip it if you don't have a blog yet — empty inspiration sections look worse than no section.

One line, one input, one button. "Get a 10% welcome discount + monthly plant care tips." Place it at the bottom; it's the lowest-commitment ask after a visitor has scrolled the entire page. Don't pop it as a modal three seconds in — that's noise on mobile and tanks bounce rate.

The seasonal hero is your homepage's most important pixel

Plant demand isn't flat. It peaks twice a year (Mother's Day and December) and rolls through six distinct rotation windows. Your homepage hero needs to reflect the current window — not the brand-launch image you uploaded a year ago.

Concretely: rotate the hero image, headline, and primary CTA four to six times per year, phasing in roughly four weeks before each peak. In late March your hero should already be garden plants, not poinsettias-on-sale. In mid-November it should be Christmas trees with a delivery promise, not "spring bulbs available now". A homepage that's still showing last season's hero in February is the clearest "this shop isn't being maintained" signal a customer can get.

The category-tile row underneath the hero rotates with it. In May, swap one Houseplants tile for a Patio plants tile. In December, swap in a Christmas tile. The structure stays the same; the contents follow the season. For the full rotation calendar and the four-to-six-week lead time, see Seasonality: rotating your plant assortment year-round.

⚠️ Phase out hard. The day after Christmas, the Christmas tree hero comes down. Not "next week when I have time" — the same day. Stale seasonal content kills conversion faster than almost anything else on a homepage.

Mobile is not a smaller desktop

Roughly 70% of plant-shop traffic lands on mobile. The blueprint above is built for it: same seven sections, same order, stacked vertically. What changes:

Hero height. Don't make the visitor scroll past a full viewport-height hero before they see anything else. Cap the mobile hero at ~70% viewport height so the USP bar peeks above the fold and signals "keep scrolling".
Category tiles in a 2-column grid, not a horizontal scroller. Horizontal scrollers on mobile hide content — visitors don't scroll sideways unless prompted. A 2-column stack of four to six tiles outperforms a swipeable carousel.
Bestsellers as horizontal scroll is fine here — visitors expect product rows to scroll sideways, and you save vertical space.
Newsletter signup at the bottom, never as a modal. Mobile modals dismissed in under a second hurt SEO (Google penalises intrusive interstitials) and convert poorly anyway.

What does not belong on the homepage

Full product grid. That's the collection page's job — see How to design the ideal collection page.
The whole menu repeated as tiles. If you have 14 categories, you have a mega menu, not 14 homepage tiles.
Long brand story. That belongs on the About us page — and it's one of your most-visited pages, so build it properly.
Detailed policy text. Footer link to the policy pages; one line in the USP bar is enough above the fold.
Auto-playing video with sound. Muted hero loops are fine; auto-sound is a bounce trigger.

Next action

Open your homepage on your phone. Time how long it takes you to identify (a) what kind of shop this is, (b) the three obvious places to click, and (c) one reason to trust this shop. If any of the three takes more than five seconds, you have a section to rebuild. Start with the hero — it's the cheapest fix and the highest-impact one.