Put your Gold… above the Fold
Here’s another Guest Blog by by Alison Cross from AlisonCross4Webs.co.uk. Its all about making sure your most important website content is seen every time by every visitor.
Introduction – its about Newspapers
The web may have overtaken newspapers as the fastest moving source of news and gossip, but there is a web term that stems directly from that old newspaper industry – the fold.
Picture the scene: you’re at a news-stand and there are racks of newspapers available. What can you see? The masthead? A title? Perhaps a photo or intriguing strap line?
Before you know it, you’ve parted with your cash and the Editorial team can heave a sigh of relief. Job done!
And Websites
In web terms, the fold is exactly the same. When you open a web page in your browser – without scrolling – the content that you can see is deemed to be ‘above the fold’.
The media gurus at Neilson reported that more than 50% of visitors to a site wouldn’t bother to scroll down beyond the fold, so reinforcing the importance of the fold in website design.
That’s a lot of potential bounces off your site if you get your content layout wrong!
But wait – that report was written in 1997 – surely our website viewing habits have changed a tad in 10 years?!
Some people will scroll, but not all
Certainly, there ARE websites where the statistics show visitors are more than willing to scroll down to the bottom of the page for information – but, by my reckoning, most of these visitors are repeat visitors, users who all ‘get’ how the site works. The casual visitor will still bounce off if what’s above the fold does not engage them.
So where is this fold then?
Ah – that’s the $64million question. The fold is a bit like a rainbow – it’s difficult to find its true location. Why? Because so much depends on the screen resolution of the viewer AND any browser add-ons that the visitor may have. The more additions that you make to your browser bar – such as the Google toolbar – make it deeper, which means that end up seeing less of each web page.
If pressed, I’d say that it’s somewhere between 500 and 600 pixels down the page – which is a pretty wide variation!
What is the ‘Gold’ that you need above the Fold
That depends on the sort of website you’ve been building. But generally speaking, you need:
• Your logo
• Your name
• Your menu bar
• Your main page message
• Your social networking buttons
• Your Ads
• Your Call to Action*
(*Call to Action – what’s the purpose of your website? To encourage people to read your blog? To visit your shop? To take part in a survey? A Call to Action is where you ask your visitor to take the next step towards fulfilling that site goal. Make sure that the Call To Action (EG ‘Get in touch for more information’) is therefore above the fold.)
How can you make people scroll under the fold?
You may have lots of other content that you want people to look at. So how do you go about getting people to scroll down the page?
• Break your copy so that it’s obvious there’s more to read
• Have something visually engaging – an image, a slideshow, a Youtube video. (This all needs to be related to your product or service, of course!)
Test your Design
To find out whether your site has a problem, you can of course check your Google analytics to see whether your bounce rate is high. (Please see this for a video tutorial on how to install Google analytics). A good bounce rate is less than 30%. Anything above 50% and you need to change your design. If its that high, its clear that the information on your website isn’t what people were hoping for. And that might be because you’re failing the fold test.
Once you’ve place all your Gold above the Fold, check your bounce rates again to see if they are improving.
Do the same for every page
Don’t forget that it’s not just your home page that you should inspect for fold issues. Every page in your website is a potential landing page, so you’ll need to check all of them to make sure that important info isn’t lurking beneath the fold.
And that’s it. Good luck putting our Gold above the Fold!
About Alison Cross
Alison Cross lives on the Isle of Bute where she has built over a dozen websites using our software. She also helps people use Twitter to market their business. For more info or advice about social media or web design, visit her website alisoncross4webs.co.uk.