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What 20 Words Will Visitors Read On Your Home Page?
According to Web design guru Jakob Nielsen, most visitors will read only 20 words on any home page. Plus, Nielsen says three-quarters of visitors don’t even bother scrolling down Web pages to see what’s below the first screen.
20 words! It seems unbelievable, but when you consider how short the attention span of consumers is today, it’s not surprising. Most TV commercials are 30 seconds now instead of one minute, with marketing messages delivered in rapid-fire sequence.
Nielsen and other researchers have been testing Web users for years and statistically analyzing their behavior. Sophisticated software tracks eye-movements and click-through paths as users perform a series of online tasks. For example, users might be asked to go to the U.S. Postal Service website to find the cost of sending a postcard to China. While an improvement over several years ago has been reported, users are still only able to complete tasks an average of 58% of the time. A whopping 42% of the time they can’t find what they are looking for.
Researchers also tell us that people spend an average of only 27 seconds on each page, mostly scanning for links and other visual clues about where to go next. If visitors don’t determine within 27 seconds that your website will answer their questions, they’ll leave. People spend slightly more time on interior pages but still under a minute, even when viewing product details and lengthy articles.
Unfortunately, most website designers still routinely ignore research about how people navigate the web and annoy visitors with slow-loading graphics and pop-up windows. Even large company websites with huge design budgets are guilty of breaking usability rules.
At Strategic Website Solutions, we follow usability best practices and keep up-to-date with research. We take the time to analyze how best to present information so it guides the visitor through the information gathering and purchasing processes. We use graphics sparingly, and write content that is clear and concise.
What 20 words will visitors read on your website’s home page? Let us help you with a design that ensures the 20 words visitors read on your home page will encourage them to stay on the website and learn more about your products and services.
Contact us today.
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