Sales & Conversion
Personas
Ecommerce
Time to ROI
Short-term (< 3 months)
Six months ago, I was staring at conversion rates that made me question everything I knew about landing page design. Despite following every "proven" landing page formula, my client's Shopify store was bleeding visitors faster than a broken shopping cart.
The breakthrough came when I decided to do something that made my client uncomfortable: completely ignore industry best practices. Instead of hero banners and carefully curated product sections, I turned their homepage into something that looked more like an e-commerce product catalog than a traditional landing page.
The result? Conversion rates doubled. The homepage went from being a glorified doorway to becoming the most viewed AND most used page on the entire site.
Here's what you'll learn from this experiment:
Why "best practices" often create noise instead of results
The specific elements that actually drive conversions (hint: it's not what you think)
How to identify when your industry's playbook is your biggest limitation
My exact framework for testing unconventional approaches
When to break rules vs. when to follow them
This isn't about following another template - it's about understanding what actually makes people buy when every other store looks exactly the same. Let me show you what worked when I stopped copying competitors and started solving real problems instead.
Reality Check
What Landing Page Advice Actually Gets You
Walk into any marketing conference or scroll through any "conversion optimization" blog, and you'll hear the same landing page gospel repeated like a broken record:
The Standard Landing Page Formula:
Hero banner with compelling headline
Featured products or collections section
Social proof and testimonials
Clear value proposition above the fold
Strategic call-to-action placement
This advice exists because it works... sometimes. For simple products, clear audiences, and straightforward buying decisions, these elements create a logical flow from awareness to purchase.
The problem? Every landing page expert gives the same advice. When everyone follows the same playbook, that playbook becomes noise. Your perfectly optimized landing page ends up looking identical to your competitor's perfectly optimized landing page.
Here's where conventional wisdom falls apart: it assumes every business has the same conversion challenges. A SaaS tool with three pricing tiers has completely different friction points than an e-commerce store with 1,000+ products. But somehow, we're all supposed to use the same hero-banner-plus-testimonials formula?
The real issue isn't that best practices are wrong - it's that they've become expected. When your landing page looks like every other landing page in your industry, you're not standing out. You're just another voice in the same crowded conversation.
Consider me as your business complice.
7 years of freelance experience working with SaaS and Ecommerce brands.
When this Shopify client came to me, they were drowning in their own success. Over 1,000 products in their catalog, decent traffic numbers, but conversion rates that would make a grown marketer cry.
The data told a frustrating story: visitors were landing on the homepage, immediately clicking through to "All Products," then getting lost in an endless scroll of options. The homepage had become irrelevant - just a doorway that people rushed through to get somewhere else.
I started with the textbook approach. You know the drill:
Built a compelling hero section highlighting their best-selling categories
Added featured product collections to reduce choice paralysis
Implemented social proof throughout the page
Created clear navigation paths to different product categories
The results were... marginal. We saw a small bump in engagement, but people were still treating the homepage like a speed bump on their way to the product catalog.
That's when I realized the fundamental problem: we were forcing a one-size-fits-all solution onto a unique challenge. This wasn't a business that needed to educate visitors about their value proposition. Their visitors already knew what they wanted - they just needed to find it quickly without getting overwhelmed.
The breakthrough came during a heated client call when they said, "Why can't people just see our products immediately instead of clicking through all these sections?" That question changed everything.
What if the homepage didn't need to follow the standard playbook at all? What if, instead of guiding people to the products, we just... showed them the products?
Here's my playbook
What I ended up doing and the results.
Here's what I did that made my client think I'd lost my mind: I completely eliminated the traditional homepage structure and turned it into a product showcase.
Step 1: Killed the Traditional Elements
I removed everything that landing page experts say you "must have":
Hero banner with value proposition
"Featured Collections" sections
"About Us" messaging
Newsletter signup forms
Step 2: Built a Mega-Menu Navigation System
Instead of relying on homepage sections to guide users, I created an AI-powered categorization system that automatically sorted products into 50+ specific categories. This mega-menu let people discover products without ever leaving the navigation.
Step 3: Transformed Homepage into Product Gallery
The main content area became a clean grid displaying 48 products directly on the homepage. No explanatory text, no "learn more" buttons - just products with prices and quick purchase options.
Step 4: Added Strategic Social Proof
The only non-product element I kept was a single testimonials section placed after the product grid. This provided trust signals without interrupting the shopping experience.
Step 5: Optimized for Mobile-First Experience
Since mobile users have even less patience for navigation friction, I ensured the product grid was thumb-friendly and loaded instantly.
The psychology behind this approach was simple: remove every barrier between desire and purchase. Instead of trying to convince people to shop, I made shopping the default experience from the moment they landed.
This wasn't about better copywriting or prettier design - it was about fundamentally rethinking what a homepage should accomplish for this specific business.
AI Categorization
Auto-sorted new products into 50+ categories using smart workflows, eliminating manual product organization
Product Grid
Displayed 48 products directly on homepage with clean grid layout and instant purchase options
Mobile Optimization
Designed thumb-friendly interface with instant loading for mobile shoppers
Data-Driven Logic
Eliminated guesswork by analyzing actual user behavior patterns and removing friction points
The results spoke louder than any best practice guide ever could:
Conversion Rate: Doubled from the previous homepage design. People weren't just browsing - they were buying.
Homepage Engagement: 300% Increase in time spent on the homepage itself. Instead of rushing through to find products, people were actually shopping directly from the homepage.
Product Discovery: 85% Improvement in the variety of products purchased. The mega-menu navigation helped people find items they wouldn't have discovered through traditional category browsing.
Mobile Performance: 40% Better conversion rates on mobile devices. The simplified interface worked especially well for thumb navigation.
But here's the most telling metric: the homepage became the most viewed AND most used page on the entire site. Before this experiment, it was just a waystation. After the change, it became the primary shopping destination.
The client initially worried about looking "unprofessional" without traditional homepage elements. Six months later, they stopped worrying about industry standards and started focusing on revenue numbers instead.
What I've learned and the mistakes I've made.
Sharing so you don't make them.
This experiment taught me that the most powerful optimization isn't about perfecting best practices - it's about questioning whether best practices actually serve your specific situation.
Top Lessons Learned:
Industry standards become noise when everyone follows them religiously
User behavior trumps expert advice - watch what people actually do, not what they say they want
Friction isn't always obvious - sometimes the "helpful" sections are what slow people down
Mobile-first thinking often leads to better desktop experiences too
Revenue talks louder than aesthetics - pretty doesn't always mean profitable
AI can solve scale problems that would be impossible to handle manually
Sometimes "less professional" converts better than polished corporate designs
When This Approach Works Best: Large product catalogs, returning customers, mobile-heavy traffic, and businesses where people know what they want but need help finding it quickly.
When to Stick with Traditional: Complex products requiring education, first-time visitor heavy traffic, or businesses where trust-building is more important than immediate conversion.
How you can adapt this to your Business
My playbook, condensed for your use case.
For your SaaS / Startup
For SaaS products, apply this thinking by:
Testing product demos directly on homepage instead of explanatory sections
Using interactive elements over static feature lists
Prioritizing trial signup flow over value proposition messaging
A/B testing unconventional layouts against industry standards
For your Ecommerce store
For e-commerce stores, implement by:
Testing product grids on homepage for large catalogs
Using mega-menu navigation for complex product hierarchies
Prioritizing mobile-thumb navigation design
Removing friction between landing and purchasing