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Importance of Your Websites First Fold - Tips to Convert Your Readers

November 19, 2007 | Author: Rob | Filed under: Design

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The first fold or page of your website is what every viewer will see regardless if they decided to stay at your website or not. Often times the speed and contents of your first fold dictate whether a new first time browser will take the time to stay at your website or just keep moving on. The internet is massive with billions of pages; if you get someone to your site it’s important to get them to stay for a while because if they don’t chances are you’ve lost them for good. Every website needs a goal. If you don’t have a goal for what will happen when someone views your site for the first time I recommend you form one. Currently my goal is to increase RSS subscribers and regular visitors / contributors.

Things to include in your first fold:

The most important thing to include in your first fold is your primary objective and major benefits of staying. A great place to include this is in your header image. Currently at Home Biz Blogger under the header it states “everything you need to know about home business”. While the rest of the page is loading the reader already knows what to expect and this increases the chances of them sticking around if information on that topic is what they are searching for. This is particularly important for websites that are on domains which don’t directly correlate to the topic. The title of your site is another great place to list the benefits. This lets the reader know immediately what your blog is about and it helps in search engine rankings.

The first thing to load on your site should be a unique header that let’s the first time reader know what the site is about while the rest of it loads. The image should say something about who you are, your personality and ultimately what the website is about. When doing this be sure to save the graphic file in a lower quality so it doesn’t take too long to load. Doesn’t matter how sharp and how high the resolution is on your header if no one is going to wait for it to load. That being said I’m in the process of getting another logo for the top made. I’m thinking of incorporating a mansion in the back of the whole text which will remind me and my readers of what we’re all here for. To make some serious money online in the not to distant future.

When creating a website or a blog in particular one thing of primary importance is to included a RSS subscribe section. If someone wants to bookmark, subscribe via feedburner or email, it should be incredibly easy for them to do so. Often times when I’ve wanted to subscribe if I couldn’t do it in an easy way I’d just give up. I’m willing to stay tuned for further updates but I’m not going out of my way. By making it easy and in a visible location you increase the odds of having people return. A good idea to increase subscribers is to offer something related to your niche for free. An e-book or special report are both good ideas.

The categories of your blog are basically a summary of what your blog is about. Try and have at least the beginning of your categories listed in the first fold; while the site loads this allows readers to get an idea of what subjects you discuss. If the categories interest the reader it will increase the likelihood of them waiting for the page to load. Also if they are impatient they may just visit a category to begin with. Both of these scenarios are better than them leaving the site.

Using a customized theme regardless if it was free or not is a good way to let the reader to know that they are in for some unique content. When I go to a website that has a generic theme from the install I’m a lot less likely to hang around and wait for everything to load. If the theme is generic, intuitively I think that the content will be as well. Select a theme that is easy to navigate and try to use soft colors that would appeal to your audience.

Things to avoid in your first fold:

Avoid any types of ads that load in your first screen. Readers came to your site to read your content, not to see adsense or any other type of ad. Ads on the first fold are tacky in my opinion and take away from the content. Also if you are currently running an ad before your content; make sure you mark it as a unique channel so you can track how many people are actually clicking on it. Chances are you’re repelling more potential subscribers than you are converting in ads. If you feel you must have ads on the first fold make them a small adsense line under the title or something discrete.

Avoid widgets on your first screen. Widgets often have to communicate with third party servers which may already have a large workload and therefor take a while to load up. The worst is having your content delayed while interacting with the servers the widget runs from. Countless times I’ve closed a window while loading because it started to hang while connecting. Also widgets normally hold links to external websites. You don’t want your readers to leave your site before it loads!

Avoid large images and graphic presentations. This drastically increases the load time which isn’t desirable.

Avoid your blogroll on the first screen. The obvious reason is as mentioned above you want to keep people on YOUR website before they visit elsewhere. Having links to friends and other resources adds to your site but don’t put it in a location where it can harm you. If you are going to have some links try and make sure they are other sites of yours so if someone leaves at least they are still in your mini network. In a perfect world if they visit an external link that belongs to you that new page also has a link back so they aren’t necessarily gone for good.

Another thing to avoid is loud clashing colors. Make the theme easy to read and appeasing on the eye. A black and yellow design may be applicable to a horror blog but not so much to a business one. Also you may like that color scheme but try and aim for something that would likely appeal to the majority of your audience and offend the fewest.

In conclusion the first fold is equivalent to putting your best foot forward. Make sure that your first fold loads fast and gives readers an idea of what you’re all about and a reason to stay. A good first fold won’t guarantee you reach your goal and convert readers to subscribers or customers but it will increase your chances significantly.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 and is filed under Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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