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Your homepage is the busiest room in your store. Visitors arrive from search, ads, social posts and email, and it often decides within seconds whether they explore or leave.
Over time, most homepages collect sections the way a garage collects boxes. A banner here, a feed there, a countdown timer someone added for a sale two years ago. A redesign is the chance to ask a harder question than “what should look different?” It’s “which sections are actually earning their place?”
This guide gives you a practical way to decide which Shopify homepage sections to keep, which to remove, and which to rebuild from scratch.
Keep sections that help a visitor understand what you sell and move toward a product: a clear header and navigation, one strong hero, featured collections, best sellers, genuine social proof and a useful footer. Remove sections that add noise without helping a purchase: auto-rotating sliders, social feeds, stale blog blocks, stacked pop-ups and duplicate product grids. Rebuild sections that matter but are executed poorly, which is most often the hero, the navigation and the trust signals.
Don’t judge sections by taste. Judge them by the job they do. Ask three questions of every block on your homepage:
Sort every section into three piles: keep as is, remove, or rebuild. Be honest about the third pile. A section that does the right job badly deserves a rebuild, not a defence.
Visitors need to know where they are and where they can go. A clean header with your logo, a short menu, search and cart is non-negotiable. Keep it, but trim it. If your menu has many top-level items or deep dropdowns, simplify before you redesign anything else.
The hero is the first thing most people see, so it should state what you sell, who it’s for and the next step. Keep the idea of a hero; question the execution. One strong image or short video, one headline, one button. If your hero tries to promote four things at once, it’s a rebuild (see below).
Collection blocks help shoppers browse by need or category before they commit to a specific product. They’re especially useful for stores with a broad range. Keep them if they’re visual, clearly named and lead to well-organised collection pages. Strong collection pages also benefit from good site structure, and our guide on Shopify internal linking and site hierarchy explains how homepage links support the pages beneath them.
A product grid gives hesitant visitors a safe starting point. Show a focused selection, not your whole catalogue. Four to eight products is usually plenty for a homepage, and the images should be consistent so the grid looks tidy.
Customer reviews, ratings and recognisable press or partner mentions build trust quickly, particularly for new brands. Keep this section if the content is genuine and recent. Use real customer words, and avoid anything you can’t back up.
The footer carries policies, contact details, shipping and returns information, and a newsletter field. Shoppers do look for these before buying. Keep it, organise it logically, and make sure it works on mobile.
Sliders hide most of their content, move before people can read them, and often push the best message to a slide hardly anyone sees. Replace them with a single focused hero and a few clearly separated promotional blocks lower down.
An Instagram or TikTok feed looks lively in a design review, but it often sends visitors off your site and can slow the page. If you want to show user-generated content, curate a few images with product links rather than embedding a live feed.
A “latest from the blog” section showing posts from two years ago tells visitors the store is neglected. Remove it, or keep it only if you publish regularly and the content genuinely helps buyers.
Many homepages show “new arrivals,” “trending,” “best sellers” and “recommended” with overlapping products. Visitors see the same items four times. Merge them into one or two purposeful grids.
Entry pop-ups, floating widgets and permanent countdown timers compete for attention and can erode trust, especially if the timer resets every visit. Keep one relevant prompt at most, and use urgency only when it’s real.
A block of vague company copy above the fold wastes your best space. Move your story lower down and make it specific and short, or link to a dedicated About page.
A rebuilt hero starts from the visitor’s question: “Is this for me?” Use a headline that names the benefit or the product category, supporting copy of one or two lines, and one primary button. On mobile, check that the headline and button appear without scrolling. Use imagery that reflects your actual products and brand rather than stock visuals.
Rebuild the menu around how customers shop, not how your internal catalogue is organised. Group products by need, category or occasion, use plain labels, and test the path from homepage to product on a phone.
Many stores bury shipping, returns and guarantee information. A concise trust strip beneath the hero, showing delivery, returns and support, answers common objections early. Keep it to three or four items and make sure each one is true.
Rebuild this as a short, specific section with an image, two or three sentences about what makes you different and a link to learn more. Focus on what the customer gains, not on company history alone.
Rather than a generic “subscribe for updates,” offer something specific, such as early access, a guide or a first-order benefit, and say how often you’ll email. Place it where it feels natural, usually near the footer.
| Section | Usual verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Header and navigation | Keep, simplify | Core wayfinding |
| Hero | Rebuild | Sets first impression and direction |
| Auto-rotating slider | Remove | Hides content, slows page |
| Trust strip | Rebuild | Answers objections early |
| Featured collections | Keep | Supports browsing |
| Best sellers grid | Keep, focus | Gives a safe starting point |
| Duplicate product grids | Remove | Repeats the same items |
| Social feed | Remove | Sends visitors away, adds weight |
| Customer reviews | Keep, refresh | Builds trust when genuine |
| Brand story | Rebuild | Needs to be short and specific |
| Blog block | Remove or update | Stale posts look neglected |
| Pop-ups and timers | Remove most | Distract and reduce trust |
| Newsletter | Rebuild | Needs a clear reason to subscribe |
| Footer | Keep, organise | Holds policies and contact |
There’s no single perfect layout, but a flow that tends to work looks like this:
Adjust the order to your business. A store with a small catalogue might skip collections and lead with products. A brand built on a strong story might bring that section higher. The principle stays the same: help visitors understand, trust, choose and buy, in that order.
Design the mobile homepage first, not as an afterthought. Many visitors will never see your desktop layout. Check that sections stack cleanly, text stays readable, buttons are easy to tap and images load quickly. Every section you add increases page weight, which is another good reason to remove anything that isn’t pulling its weight.
Before and after a redesign, track conversion rate, bounce rate, click-through to collections and add-to-cart rate. Compare similar periods so seasonality doesn’t mislead you. A better homepage supports sales, but it can’t fix weak products, unclear pricing or poor traffic quality. If your homepage is doing its job but not enough people are arriving, our social media marketing services can help bring the right audience to your store.
If your layout is sound and only a few sections are weak, targeted changes to the hero, trust strip and product grid may be enough. If the homepage structure fights your products, your catalogue has outgrown the theme, or edits keep breaking the layout, a full Shopify store redesign is usually the more efficient route. Custom sections and templates also depend on how well your theme is set up, so it helps to work with a team experienced in Shopify theme customization and design.
At minimum: clear navigation, a focused hero, a way into your products (collections or best sellers), some form of social proof, and a useful footer. Everything else should earn its place.
There’s no fixed number. Most effective homepages are fairly short, with every section serving a clear purpose. If a section has no job, remove it.
In most cases, yes. A single clear hero is easier to read and tends to communicate the message more reliably than a rotating carousel.
Review it at least once or twice a year and update sections when your products, promotions or branding change. A full redesign is only needed when the structure no longer fits your business.
It can improve clarity, trust and navigation, which support conversions, but results depend on your products, pricing, traffic and wider store experience.
A good homepage isn’t the one with the most sections. It’s the one where every section has a clear job and the visitor always knows what to do next.
At Xeedevelopers, we approach every store with data-first decisions and a people-first mindset. We’re a Shopify Experts agency established in 2019, with experience across 8,000+ Shopify stores and sectors including fashion, beauty, food and furniture. If you’d like help deciding what to keep, remove or rebuild, explore our redesign service or contact us, or email Info@xeedevelopers.com, and we’ll look at your homepage with you.
Most Shopify owners start by fixing things themselves, and that’s a sensible place to begin. The theme editor is friendly, tutorials are everywhere, and a few hours of effort can noticeably improve a store.
But there’s a point where DIY stops saving money and starts costing it. Weekends vanish into small tweaks, the layout breaks when you change one thing, and the store still doesn’t look or perform the way you imagined.
When a product page isn’t converting, the instinct is usually to add something. A countdown timer. A trust badge app. A pop-up. A “frequently bought together” widget. Each promises a lift, and each adds weight, code and visual noise.
You paid for a premium theme. The demo looked sharp, the reviews were good, and the developer promised a “modern, high-converting” design. Yet your live store feels flat, cluttered or just a bit old.
You haven’t been scammed, and you haven’t made a rookie mistake. This is one of the most common problems we see at Xeedevelopers. A premium theme gives you a solid framework, but design quality comes from what you build on top of it.
