Website Eyetracking...We want to make your website effective!
Sharon@owenwebsitedesign.com
Headlines
Believe it or not, headlines override pictures and logos. Graphic artist may not want to hear it, but eyetracking studies have found that headlines get the first attention on a website page. Many viewers skim the page, bypassed the graphics, and read the first couple of words of the headline to see if it is what they are looking for. The left side of the page should include headlines and good keywords that your visitors want to read further about.
The Golden Triangle
Have you ever given any thought as to why Google, Yahoo, and Bing put their ads where they do? The reason is because of heat maps (the results of eyetracking studies- see the link below) These heat maps prove that a golden triangle exists in web design, extending from around the horizontal midway point of the screen, to the extreme left side of the screen at the bottom of the fold. These two points are joined to make a 'golden triangle' - and this is where all the important parts of your web design should go.
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Research has shown that "eyetracking" studies have clearly proven that website visitors view and scan with their eyes certain areas of the page over others. When building your website, we try to implement the value of these studies in order to build a more effective and profitable website for your business. Below are some of the top conclusions about website eyetracking.
Smaller type
Without making the font too too small, consider making some of the font and content on your site a little smaller. Why? Studies have found that more people will focus on your website copy for longer if you make it smaller. It basically forces people to read the content rather than simply scanning and skimming through the information as they will do with the headline.
Multimedia
Again, as much as graphic artist and flash web designers don't want to hear it, the bottom line is that people don't pay as much attention to banner ads with a lot of flash and sparkle, per say. They actually prefer to read text ads. While a site may "wow you" with it's wonderful animation, it does little to encourage reading, which is the whole point of getting people to your site. When does flash help, you might ask? The video to the left, which also broadcast information about website eyetracking, would be a good use for flash.
Bottom of the page
Some web designers say that most important information should go above the fold, as they call it. I happen to agree with this philosophy, given that I believe your phone number and address (points of contact) are the most important. If you look at the heat map, you will find the bottom left to be a "hot" area. Often times, websites will have navigation links at the bottom (as I have the orange arrow pointing to) of the page because people do visit the bottom of the page and it makes it easier to navigate to various other pages of the site without having to scroll all the way back up to the top.
In Closing...
Eyetracking studies are expensive to perform. Yet large corporations still use eyetracking studies to find out where to place the most valuable content on the pages. Owen Web Design, on the other hand, uses the data which has already been proven by these studies and implements these techniques on the websites we build in order to make them more effective.
The eyes don't lie! Or do they? This just happens to be an optical illusion - where your eyes are actually lying. But with website eyetracking, your eyes don't lie!
