Saturday, July 01, 2006
Staying Above the Fold
One of the biggest things I'm doing in THE BIG REVISION that I'm working on for a client is to manage what visitors see "above the fold" on each page. Each page has to have a clear and immediate direction that visitors can take toward the next step in finding what they want (and, of course, buying it).
Previously, I had let my love of the English language carry this information down the page a bit. Key stuff on many pages was "below the fold" as they call it.
In other words, the key stuff designed to move visitors to the next step in their search was down where the only way to see it was to scroll down. It was below the bottom of the visible screen that they see when they first access the page.
The result? Visitor arrives at page. Visitor sees nothing to guide them closer to their goal. Visitor wonders, "What the blazes am I supposed to do next?" Visitor goes bye-bye.
Sure, you know and I know that all that Visitor needs to do is scroll down a little to find everything explained. But Visitor many times is an impatient sort who wants to go, "click-click-click, I FOUND IT!"
People expect instant gratification on the Internet. Any site that makes them hunt—or, God forbid, even think—gets tossed aside. After all, there are plenty of other sites that don't make those kinds of demands on them.
I'm not saying this to complain that website visitors "aren't doing their part." If you want to have a customer-friendly website (and its higher sales ratios), it behooves you to build your site the way that best suits your visitors' needs.
In this case, it means going back and streamlining the pages. It means cutting the intros down to the bare minimum and getting right to the meat. And it means keeping the stuff that guides visitors closer to their goals in plain site the moment each page loads.
Take a look at your web pages once. What do you see above the fold? Does it take your visitors by the hand and lead them to the next step in your sales process? Or is just a nicely framed bunch of pictures and text? If the area above the fold doesn't immediately communicate to them where they need to go next, you're losing sales.
Jeff
One of the biggest things I'm doing in THE BIG REVISION that I'm working on for a client is to manage what visitors see "above the fold" on each page. Each page has to have a clear and immediate direction that visitors can take toward the next step in finding what they want (and, of course, buying it).
Previously, I had let my love of the English language carry this information down the page a bit. Key stuff on many pages was "below the fold" as they call it.
In other words, the key stuff designed to move visitors to the next step in their search was down where the only way to see it was to scroll down. It was below the bottom of the visible screen that they see when they first access the page.
The result? Visitor arrives at page. Visitor sees nothing to guide them closer to their goal. Visitor wonders, "What the blazes am I supposed to do next?" Visitor goes bye-bye.
Sure, you know and I know that all that Visitor needs to do is scroll down a little to find everything explained. But Visitor many times is an impatient sort who wants to go, "click-click-click, I FOUND IT!"
People expect instant gratification on the Internet. Any site that makes them hunt—or, God forbid, even think—gets tossed aside. After all, there are plenty of other sites that don't make those kinds of demands on them.
I'm not saying this to complain that website visitors "aren't doing their part." If you want to have a customer-friendly website (and its higher sales ratios), it behooves you to build your site the way that best suits your visitors' needs.
In this case, it means going back and streamlining the pages. It means cutting the intros down to the bare minimum and getting right to the meat. And it means keeping the stuff that guides visitors closer to their goals in plain site the moment each page loads.
Take a look at your web pages once. What do you see above the fold? Does it take your visitors by the hand and lead them to the next step in your sales process? Or is just a nicely framed bunch of pictures and text? If the area above the fold doesn't immediately communicate to them where they need to go next, you're losing sales.
Jeff
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