Above the fold web design

Get your website "Above the Fold" for better user experience

or help your readers go below for better end-user experience and conversions

"Above the fold web design" is simple.  It means to get the gist of your concept, headline, or "hook" above the fold for multiple viewers around the globe who are visiting or re-visiting your site, based on their screen resolution. . . not yours.

OK - So what is "the fold"?  

Simply put, the fold is the area of a viewers computer screen, based on monitor size / resolution that is viewed in their screen upon the initial loading of your site.  

The "pure" term "above the fold" refers to where your web page is cut off at the bottom based on the visitors screen height (tool bar screen compression) etc.

Look at different "fold" comparisons on this diagram and see how our current sites are missing some things for 1-20% of our visitors worldwide.

Test your sites for free with Foldetester.com (no hoops or optins)

If you'll notice that the design on AimAdvantage.com at the time of this post shows that between 5-20% of our visitors might be struggling to get the gist of our site or a particular article to determine whether it is worth reading.  This tells us that a CSS tweaking is in order to make the site more user friendly for those with lower screen sizes, resolutions, and perhaps a few too many browser tool bars at work while browsing.  

So why is "above the fold web design" so important?

With all of the trouble getting people's attention and keeping it, while people have seemingly less "available" time than they did 50 years ago, and are inundated with more information than mankind has received in the last several thousand years, it's time to "move with the cheese" or die.

You've got 1 shot to make your first catch or impression,

and should always begin with AIDA:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire and
• Call to Action

as a basic outline for effective copywriting for any medium.  

Also- if you are selling or communicating anything worth considerable value, then you have many more benefits than what can be captured in 3-5 bullet points, so getting your readers to continue is 1 of the most challenging strategies with online or direct response marketing and copywriting.

Long vs. Short Copy Advertising / Writing . . . 

Amazon.com is perhaps one of the best "sales-conversion" websites on the planet and they use long copy with

the Kindle- the #1 selling virtual, portable e-book reader designed by Amazon
(study their sales page if you are not convinced, as it is over 19 feet long!)

Kindle 3G Wireless Reading Device, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 3G Works Globally, Graphite, 6" Display with New E Ink Pearl Technology

By the way, how many copywriting strategies did you see in Amazon's Kindle Sales Page?

(we counted at least 24 different strategies upon our first "browse")

Anyone who has been in the direct response marketing business, for any industry, knows that in split tests, long copy wins in almost every case.  In fact, we do not currently know any cases where shorter copy has won.  We cut our teeth a bit in the real estate industry, then diversified to other industries, and

have always seen long copy beat short copy. . . why?

Imagine a salesman who comes to you and offers 3 sentences. . . 3 benefits and no other replies to your questions or interests, objections or desires. . . 

He or she doesn't say another word, but just sits there and stares at you with his or her hand out waiting for you to fork over your cash for the sale.

Would you buy from him or her  versus a person who was able to answer all of your honest objections with facts that help aid you to make an informed and comfortable purchase?

The bottom line for getting attention above the fold, and getting your users to read below the fold is this:

long copy sells to real buyers

and if you are interested in learning how to make long copy work for you and getting people to read below the fold, follow this simple plan:

9 Steps to a solid, long sales copy, below the fold page

1- Gather all of the relevant research on all benefits (value propositions) of your product

2-  write up a small, bulleted list of the benefits for each value proposition

3- Gather testimonials if you have them

4- Gather other social proof for each benefit or value proposition

5- Write a single selling page for each benefit, using it's own unique headline as if you were just selling on that 1 point

6- Put all of your mini-sales pages in order and make sure each one follows AIDA (sometimes the call to action just entices the person to read more)

7- Compose a long sales page from all of your mini pages

8- Edit your final copy and post it.

9 - Test every headline separately with Adwords (PPC), and / or test the final version with different variations and orders of your mini-sales pages

Ok- you've got your scrolling tools and buttons, and your long copy sales page, now,

how do you test your pages in "real-time" for improvement?

One excellent tool set is offered by ClickTale which not only helps you figure out the click-paths that your visitors are on when traveling through your site, but you also get heat maps and a whole lot more:

Try click-tale out with a  Free Account.

So what comes with Click-Tale and why should you try it?

First of all, they have over 50,000 satisfied clients including, Hallmark.com, Mint.com, Entrepreneur Magazine to say the least and you can read more about their tool on their blog here : the ClickTale blog

Secondly, they have loads of tools and stats to help you:

• watch and observe real browsing behavior to know what people are looking at and clicking on
• helps you analyze the right changes to implement on your page updates
• improvements will help you with sales conversions based off of real user-behavior instead of "gut feel" or the shotgun approach to sales, marketing and improvement

By testing in real-time many factors of 3 main things:

1) Mouse Click and Movement tracking recording:

• Visitor behaviors
• Move Heatmap
• Click Heatmaps
• Real time movement and behavior monitors
   

• Heatmap Suite
• Mouse Movements with links
• Mouse Clicks with links
• Attention
• Scroll Reaching capabilities

3) Complete Conversion Suite (without dismantling other analytic suites)

• Sales, Marketing, Click / visitor conversion funnels
• Form analytics - want more insight on your webforms- how people are reacting to them and why they might be leaving without telling you?
• Page console - for every page on your site
• Advanced filtering - to track customizable behaviors, clicks, trails and funnels
• Custom alerts will notify you with any kind of notice you customize for your page or site
• Campaign Tracking - allows you to track multiple levels of a sales / marketing campaign
• Dashboard - complete - easy to use, intuitive control panel with full support
• Page reports - Detailed x-ray of every aspect of your visitor's behavior

So then, after everything is in place, try them out for free an potentially earn your costs of a paid platform from your sales funnel improvements before you buy.  

Read more here at the ClickTale blog.

In Summary:

1)  Review your websites for "Above the Fold Strategies" (try foldtester.com)

2)  Make changes to get your message above the fold or to encourage readers to scroll down or take action

3)  Convert more of your pages to "long copy" by making every argument, benefit, or value proposition available

4)  Study Amazon.com's sales pages and conversion strategies (become a customer and you'll see what I mean)

5)  Set up a free user account at Click Tale for 1 domain name and watch what your visitors are really doing!

6)  Make adjustments and improvements to your sales funnels based off of user experience and facts instead of the "educated guess"

7)  Scientifically improve your Conversions online and prove it to yourself and your clients (if you are a consultant)

Then. . .

What can you do to discover more about improving sales conversions on your website?

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Aaron Schulman for Aim Advantage