“Above the Fold” is a newspaper term that has been adapted to web design. Originally, it referred to the information that was on the front page of a newspaper on the top section. Newspapers are sold on street corners, in vending machines, or at newsstands, so the biggest stories had to have easy to read headlines in an obvious place in order to get purchased. In website design, “above the fold” is equally applicable in the sense that the most important or actionable information should be visible without people having to scroll down.
As a selling point, having a clear message above the fold on your website is more important than it ever was for a newspaper. Most ecommerce and lead generation websites pay far more than the cost of a newspaper to get one person to visit the site. Whether you are purchasing traffic through an agency or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) service like Google Adwords, you will quickly find that the best converting keywords can cost anywhere from fifty cents to twenty seven dollars per click! If you’re investing this kind of money in one set of eyeballs, you should make sure that the landing page (the relevant page on your site, which should be the best match for your keyword) presents information to the reader quickly and encourages them to take action right away.
Eye tracking studies on popular sites like Google show how much value the top of a webpage contains. On a search engine, 100% of the people see the first three results, which is why people use search engine optimization techniques or Pay-Per-Click marketing to appear in these spaces. The shape of the “heat map” for eye tracking on Google is called the “golden triangle,” because of the value found in that section of above-the-fold space.
On a regular website, people have been conditioned to look for information in the center for information, and the top right for phone numbers, so there should always be a clear message at the top of just about every page on your website. Remember that you don’t have a lot of control over how or where people land on your site, so useful information should be built into the top and center of every page. As a side note, it has been observed that placing a contact form on the right margin “marginalizes” it, so it gets less attention than it would get if it were closer to the middle of the webpage. For people who get most of their customers through form fill-outs, even a small increase in conversion rate can be the difference between profitability and bankruptcy, so this should be one angle that is exploited whenever possible.
Another industry term used in website conversion optimization is “hero shot” which essentially refers to your product or service as the “hero” of the page. Logically, the image should convey that the product/service is the heroic solution to whatever problem or need that the customer wants addressed. People respond to images more quickly than they do text, so a picture showing how the product solves a problem will get a reaction. Depending on the landing page, the hero shot should be as relevant as possible to the search term. It generally goes in the upper center of the page below the header, which is sometimes called the “hero space.”
One way to find out how well your on-page content is working is to use click tracking and analytics tools. Google Analytics has an overlay feature that shows which links people click on. Crazyegg and Clicktale offer even more advanced features which will either show you a heat map for user behavior or actual movies of mouse movement. This kind of advanced analytics is invaluable for testing site design and conversion features, because you can get unbiased information about how your site is performing.
The best information to put above the fold is your phone number, a brief contact form, or your top product categories and pricing. Secondarily, trust is a huge factor in turning visitors into customers, so you should be showing trust indicators like secure site logos, accreditations, and BBB membership information where people will see it right away. If you take credit cards and PayPal, you should have the logos visible right away, since acceptance of certain cards may be the difference between a sale and a lost visit.
The most important takeaway for the “above the fold” philosophy is that you want to create a quick value proposition that encourages people to stay on your website and get the information that they need. In the same way that newspapers offer a concise and attention grabbing headline to sell all the pages inside, your landing page’s above-the-fold (or “above-the-crease”) space should do the same thing. No matter how traffic comes to your site, or what pages people land on, the “above the scroll” information is going to be the factor that determines whether you keep your audience or lose a potential customer.
