SearchPath Blog: Making Your Website More Effective

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Making Your Website More Effective

Every time a visitor comes to your site, they take a particular path. Their eyes move in quick motion, hopping from one hotspot to the next. If you don't know how your visitors are travelling, your conversion rates will suffer.

Fortunately, Eyetrack testing (tracking eye movements as visitors move through a website and how they scan any individual page) has revealed the common behaviours of people viewing web pages, helping website owners improve their site design, headlines, font sizes, navigation, article formats, and even their ads

So how can you use these results to improve your website effectiveness?

Navigation
Navigation at the top of a page works best – it was seen by the highest percentage of test subjects and looked at for the longest duration.

Your navigation is best placed on the top or left side of the page. Why? Simply because this is what people are used to.

Font Size
Smaller type encourages focused reading rather than scanning - larger type results in increased scanning of the page. The key is to find the appropriate balance that will encourage readers to focus on your text more than they scan, while still being readable.

Also, visual breaks, such as underlined headlines or a line, discourage people from looking at items beyond the break.

Article Format
Visitors do not read your website word for word. They are scanning and picking out relevant information that they feel is important. By placing content in the right place, you can improve your site's effectiveness, increase your sales, increase subscriber numbers and better your return on investment.

For example, the headline is often the first element that people see on your site. Make sure you have a compelling headline that speaks directly to your visitors’ needs and wants, to draw them into the site. A change in the headline on a sales page can produce a 1,900% increase in sales.

Start your articles with a boldface introductory paragraph - 95% of people will read some/all of it.

How do you get them to continue reading? Use short, snappy paragraphs - shorter paragraphs received twice as many eye fixations as those with longer paragraphs.

Most people also seem to focus on the left side of the page and look for related words that might entice them to read closer. Therefore, include some important keywords on the left-hand side of the page so that readers can quickly see pick them out and be pulled further into the material.

You can also encourage your readers to continue reading by using bolding and enticing sub headings.

Advertising
Many people ignore ads, but good placement and design can often improve your results.

For example, ads in the top and left areas of a page receive the most attention and perform better than those on the right.

Ads placed next to important editorial content can really help attract attention to the ads. These ads perform best when they are truly integrated into the actual content of the page.

Image ads receive much more attention if they are larger. For example, one of the test pages in the Eyetrack III test found that a postage-stamp sized image was viewed by 10 percent of the participants while an average sized photo (about 230 pixels wide and deep) drew the attention of 70 percent of the people.

Their research also showed that clean, clear faces in images attract more eye attention on homepages.

On the other hand, people seem to avoid ads when a visual barrier is placed between the ad and the content. These breaks can consist of either white space or a border.

Ads that blend into the look and feel of the page draw the most attention. In addition, text ads were also found to receive the most response.

Search Results
What do people look at when they are presented with a list of search engine results?

Studies have shown that the majority of eye activity, and maximum interest, happens within a 'golden triangle' at the top of the search results page. The study showed that the top 5 results (ones above the fold) received the most exposure.

Below is a chart showing the organic ranking visibility of the top 10 positions.

Rank 1 - 100%
Rank 2 - 100%
Rank 3 - 100%
Rank 4 - 85%
Rank 5 - 60%
Rank 6 - 50%
Rank 7 - 50%
Rank 8 - 30%
Rank 9 - 30%
Rank 10 - 20%

Side sponsored ads receive significantly less attention. See the overview below of the visibility of the side sponsored ads based on position:

1 - 50%
2 - 40%
3 - 30%
4 - 20%
5 - 10%
6 - 10%
7 - 10%
8 - 10%

This is largely due to an "F" shaped scan pattern in which the eye tends to travel vertically along the far left side of the results and then scan to the right occasionally if something catches its attention.

These statistics show the importance of ranking well and also of using relevant keywords within your title and description. With a relevant and interesting title and description, you can attract more eyeballs within the search engine results.