Your homepage is often the first impression visitors get of your company. But when you offer several products, deciding what to highlight can be challenging.
Should your homepage present the company and its entire product portfolio? Or would it be more effective to focus visitors’ attention on a single flagship product?
At Nelio Software, we develop several WordPress plugins, including Nelio A/B Testing, Nelio Content, Nelio Popups, Nelio Forms, and Nelio Session Recordings. Traditionally, our homepage introduced Nelio Software as a whole and gave similar visibility to all our products.
However, Nelio A/B Testing is our main product. We therefore wondered whether giving it a much more prominent position on the homepage would attract more potential customers and ultimately generate more purchases.
There was only one way to find out: run an A/B test.
Testing Hypothesis
The original version of our homepage presented Nelio Software as a company that builds WordPress plugins.
Its hero section included the following headline:
We build WordPress plugins to power your website
The main call to action invited visitors to view all our plugins. Further down the page, the “Our Premium Plugins” section displayed Nelio A/B Testing alongside the rest of our products.
This design gave visitors a broad overview of what we offer, but it did not direct them towards any particular solution.
We wondered whether this generic presentation was causing us to miss an opportunity.
Our hypothesis was that featuring Nelio A/B Testing directly in the hero section would make its value proposition immediately visible and encourage more visitors to discover the product.
The alternative version therefore replaced the general company message with a headline focused entirely on A/B testing:
Optimize Your WordPress Site with Powerful A/B Testing
We also added a short description explaining that visitors could test landing pages and other elements directly within WordPress, together with a more specific call to action:
Start Testing Now
The illustration in the hero section was also changed to visually communicate experimentation, conversions, and website optimization.
Because Nelio A/B Testing had already become the featured product in the hero section, we removed it from the product grid below. The remaining plugins were presented as additional solutions visitors could discover after learning about our main product.
The alternative did not change our navigation, testimonials, company information, or blog posts. Its main purpose was to change the hierarchy of the page and make Nelio A/B Testing the clear protagonist.
We expected this change to:
- Increase visits to the Nelio A/B Testing product page.
- Increase visits to the Nelio A/B Testing pricing page.
- Ultimately generate more Nelio A/B Testing purchases.
Definition of the A/B Test
To measure the impact of the new homepage, we created a page test using Nelio A/B Testing.
The original homepage was used as the control version, or Variant A. We then created Variant B, which contained the new hero section focused on Nelio A/B Testing.
We configured three conversion goals representing different stages of the customer journey.
Visit the Nelio A/B Testing Product Page
The first goal measured how many homepage visitors subsequently visited the Nelio A/B Testing landing page.
This was the most direct way to determine whether featuring the product on the homepage generated more interest in it.
Nelio A/B Testing
Native Tests for WordPress
Use your WordPress page editor to create variants and run powerful tests with just a few clicks. No coding skills required.
Visit the Nelio A/B Testing Pricing Page
Visiting the product page indicates curiosity, but visiting the pricing page usually represents stronger commercial intent.
For this reason, our second conversion goal counted visitors who reached the Nelio A/B Testing pricing page after seeing one of the homepage variants.
Purchase Nelio A/B Testing
Our final and most important goal measured purchases.
A purchase was counted whenever a visitor reached the confirmation page displayed after completing a Nelio A/B Testing subscription.
These three goals allowed us to analyze the complete funnel: from initial product discovery to pricing consideration and, finally, purchase.
After configuring the variants and conversion actions, we started the test and let Nelio A/B Testing distribute homepage visitors between the two versions.
Analysis of the A/B Test Results
At the time of analyzing the results, the experiment had been running for one year and ten months.
During this period, the test recorded:
- 10,037 total page views.
- 6,663 unique page views.
- 3,321 unique page views for the control version.
- 3,342 unique page views for the alternative version.
Traffic was therefore distributed very evenly between both alternatives.
Let’s look at what happened at each stage of the conversion funnel.
Visits to the Nelio A/B Testing Product Page
The first goal measured how many visitors reached the Nelio A/B Testing landing page.
The original homepage achieved:
- 1,521 unique conversions.
- A conversion rate of 45.80%.
The alternative homepage achieved:
- 1,634 unique conversions.
- A conversion rate of 48.89%.
Featuring Nelio A/B Testing in the hero section therefore produced a relative improvement of 6.8%.
Nelio A/B Testing reported that Variant B was the winner for this goal with a confidence of 98.77%.
This result supports our initial hypothesis. When visitors immediately saw a clear explanation of Nelio A/B Testing and a relevant call to action, they were more likely to continue to the product page.
The improvement might initially appear modest, but on a homepage receiving thousands of visits, an increase of almost 7% can result in a significant number of additional potential customers entering the funnel.
Visits to the Nelio A/B Testing Pricing Page
The next goal measured visits to the Nelio A/B Testing pricing page.
This represented a stronger indication of interest because these visitors had progressed beyond simply learning about the product and were now considering its plans and cost.
The control version generated:
- 1,121 unique conversions.
- A conversion rate of 33.75%.
The alternative generated:
- 1,337 unique conversions.
- A conversion rate of 40.01%.
This corresponds to an improvement of 18.5% for the alternative homepage.
In this case, the results were even clearer: Nelio A/B Testing reported Variant B as the winner with 100% confidence.
This was the most substantial improvement observed in the test.
The alternative did not merely encourage visitors to click through to the product page. It also brought considerably more visitors to the point where they could evaluate the available plans.
This suggests that the visitors attracted by the featured-product design were not just clicking out of curiosity. A larger proportion of them continued moving through the sales funnel.
Purchases of Nelio A/B Testing
The final goal was the one that ultimately matters most: purchases.
The original homepage generated:
- 109 unique purchases.
- A conversion rate of 3.28%.
The alternative generated:
- 122 unique purchases.
- A conversion rate of 3.65%.
The alternative therefore achieved an apparent improvement of 11.2%.
At first sight, this seems like another positive result. Variant B generated 13 more purchases than the control version despite receiving almost the same amount of traffic.
However, unlike the previous two goals, Nelio A/B Testing did not identify a clear winner for purchases.
Although the observed conversion rate was higher for Variant B, the number of purchases was not sufficient to conclude with the desired statistical confidence that the difference was caused by the new homepage rather than normal variation.
This distinction is important.
An improvement displayed in the results does not automatically mean that the alternative is statistically better. When conversion events are relatively infrequent, as purchases usually are, much more data may be required before a reliable winner can be declared.
We can therefore say that Variant B generated more purchases during the test, but we cannot claim conclusively that featuring Nelio A/B Testing on the homepage will always increase sales by 11.2%.
Understanding the Complete Funnel
Looking at the three goals together gives us a much more useful picture than looking only at purchases.
Variant B achieved:
- 6.8% more visits to the Nelio A/B Testing product page.
- 18.5% more visits to the Nelio A/B Testing pricing page.
- 11.2% more purchases, although the purchase result was not statistically conclusive.
The first two results show strong evidence that featuring Nelio A/B Testing helped visitors discover the product and progress further through the sales funnel.
The purchase results moved in the same direction, but the available data was not strong enough to confirm a definitive effect.
This highlights why it is useful to define several conversion goals in an A/B test.
Had we measured only purchases, our conclusion would simply have been that the alternative looked promising but that the result remained inconclusive.
By also measuring visits to the product and pricing pages, we learned that the new design clearly improved the earlier stages of the funnel. It attracted more visitors to Nelio A/B Testing and generated substantially more pricing-page visits.
The test therefore provided valuable information even though its final purchase goal did not produce a statistically significant winner.
Why Did the Featured Product Perform Better?
There are several possible explanations for the improvement.
A Clearer Value Proposition
The original headline described what Nelio Software does, but it did not explain a specific problem we could solve for the visitor.
The alternative immediately introduced A/B testing as a way to optimize a WordPress website. This gave visitors a much more concrete reason to continue exploring.
A More Relevant Call to Action
“See Our Plugins” is a broad call to action. Visitors clicking it still need to decide which product might be relevant to them.
“Start Testing Now” is more specific and action-oriented. It creates a direct path from the homepage to the featured product.
Fewer Decisions
Presenting several products with equal importance gives visitors more options, but more options do not always make the next step easier.
By featuring one product, the alternative reduced the initial decision visitors had to make. Those interested in A/B testing could follow a clear path, while visitors looking for other solutions could still find them further down the page or through the navigation menu.
Better Alignment Between Message and Destination
The alternative homepage introduced the problem of website optimization and presented Nelio A/B Testing as the solution. The product page and pricing page were natural continuations of that message.
This consistency may explain why the improvement was particularly strong for visits to the pricing page.
Conclusion
Our experiment showed that presenting a featured product on the homepage can be more effective than giving all products the same prominence.
The alternative homepage produced statistically significant improvements in visits to both the Nelio A/B Testing landing page and its pricing page.
It also generated more purchases, although the purchase difference was not statistically conclusive.
The test therefore validated the main part of our hypothesis: featuring Nelio A/B Testing clearly increased its visibility and encouraged more visitors to move through the sales funnel.
It did not prove beyond doubt that the alternative directly increased purchases, but all three metrics moved in a positive direction.
Our Decision
Considering the results, we decided that the featured-product approach was the better option.
The new homepage communicated a clearer value proposition, directed more visitors towards our main product, and generated substantially more visits to its pricing page.
At the same time, visitors could still discover the rest of our WordPress plugins through the product section and the main navigation.
The results also remind us that a homepage does not necessarily need to give every product the same amount of attention. When one product is strategically more important, featuring it can create a clearer experience and guide visitors towards the actions that matter most.
And, as always, we did not have to rely on assumptions. By testing the two approaches with Nelio A/B Testing, we could base our decision on the behavior of real visitors.
That is ultimately the value of A/B testing: even when the final conversion does not produce a conclusive winner, the experiment can reveal how visitors move through the funnel and help you make better-informed decisions about your website.
Featured Image by Artem Gavrysh on Unsplash.
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