How people scan pages...

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  • planet777
    First Lieutenant

    • Dec 2006
    • 181

    How people scan pages...

    HI all,

    my site is diet and weightloss - www.flabfallsoff.com and hosted by Voda...

    ...found this useful and wanted to share it but wasnt sure exaaaactly where to put this - plumped for the SEO section coz if one doesnt optimise one's site for reader's viewing then there's not much use... :-

    Trust ppl will get something out of it!

    Survey offers a 'sneak peek' into Net surfers' brains
    By Edward C. Baig, USA TODAY

    Seeing is believing when it comes to understanding how consumers surf the Internet.
    And they see very little online — including pricey banner ads screaming for attention. That's one of the findings of a study out today by Nielsen Norman Group, an authority on making websites and products easy to use.

    Using sophisticated eye-tracking equipment, the Fremont, Calif., firm was able to track what consumers really look at on the Web vs. what they say they look at.

    "This is a sneak peek into people's brains," says Kara Pernice Coyne, the firm's research director.

    As more business shifts to the Internet, the study findings show companies still have much to learn about how best to present an online image.
    "People spend millions of dollars developing these websites," says Randolph Bias, who teaches at the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. Companies would benefit if they tested their sites more before launching them, he says.

    The Nielsen firm asked more than 230 participants to research specific tasks and companies online. Tasks included learning to tie a type of knot called a "bowline," figuring out how to invest $10,000, planning a Colorado ski trip, shopping for a mortgage and deciding whether to adopt a cairn terrier or pharaoh hound from an animal shelter.

    Other findings from the firm's study:
    • Individuals read Web pages in an "F" pattern. They're more inclined to read longer sentences at the top of a page and less and less as they scroll down. That makes the first two words of a sentence very important.
    "People are extremely good at screening out things and focusing in on a small number of salient page elements," says Jakob Nielsen, a principal at the firm.
    • Surfers connect well with images of people looking directly at them. It helps if the person in the photo is attractive, but not too good looking.
    Photos of people who are clearly professional models are a turnoff. "The person has to be approachable," Pernice Coyne says.
    • Images in the middle of a page can present an obstacle course.
    • People respond to pictures that provide useful information, not just decoration.
    • Consumers will peek at ads in search engines as a "secondary thing," Nielsen says, since they usually have specific product targets in mind.
    JetBlue Airways was one of the sites to get it right, Pernice Coyne says. The company did a good job producing an uncluttered, three-column home page. "When there is less on a page, users read more," she says. Pernice Coyne also praised Sears for providing tables that make it easy for potential buyers to compare products by price and other features.

    But more often, companies struggle to find a balance between information and design. "We have lots of examples of bad design," she says. For example, surfers who went to the investor relations page at Agere Systems tuned out text boxes with potentially relevant information because they thought they were ads; they were not. Mistaken identity was also a problem at Adelphia's site.

    Study participants were baffled by one of ****'s websites. For example, asked to find ****'s New York City store, users landed at ****Style.com. Some users could not tell whether the page was an official **** site.

    "That sort of thing happens a lot," Pernice Coyne says. "Companies get
    cute about their Web branding."

    The study echoes earlier findings that consumers are blind to banner ads. Still, at least one group — small children — doesn't shy away from banner ads, because kids like sites with lots of bright images. "The more eye candy, the more they are going to click," says Allison Druin, an information technology professor at the University of Maryland.

    But starting about age 7, kids become more discerning, Druin says.
    A manual to help small-business owners . http://www.entrepreneurshipz.com
  • davidundalicia
    General

    • Mar 2006
    • 6294

    #2
    Re: How people scan pages...

    The above page must have been designed well, as I read every single word !!

    Hi planet777, how you doing ??
    Have fun
    Regards..... David

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    • planet777
      First Lieutenant

      • Dec 2006
      • 181

      #3
      Re: How people scan pages...

      Hey Dave,

      glad you read every word... lol :-

      Yeah, I'm doin' good, and U? Howz everything going?

      I'm still whaling away on every aspect of the site and the copy and SEO and ... and ... and... lol! It's a challenge but I like it!

      cheers for now

      Will
      A manual to help small-business owners . http://www.entrepreneurshipz.com

      Comment

      • motoxxx
        Major

        • Dec 2005
        • 343

        #4
        Re: How people scan pages...

        heheheh Dave that was a good one!

        There is a lot of very good information there and much of it I learned the hard way with my very first site that is still and and doing surprisingly well at the moment!

        One thing I think they should have added is about the "Golden Triangle"
        This is how a person usually scans a page. The article refers to it as an "F" but the eye study cases I have seen actually show the pattern to be triangle that starts in the upper left of the page (Looking for the logo or address), then scans to the middle right side of the page (your eyes just skim the middle looking for anything interesting in the middle of the page) and then back down to lower left corner. This forms the "Golden Triangle"

        Think about and pay attention to how you look at a page when you are looking for something and you first land on a page...notice what you your eye pattern is. It is pretty cool once you pay attention to what you most likely are doing yourself.

        I implemented this into a site that I redid a few months ago and my conversions went up about 300%. Check this out HERE
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        • LadyEye
          General & Forum Moderator

          • Jun 2006
          • 10526

          #5
          Re: How people scan pages...

          That was a good one David .... You must be using those new glasses I sent you ... lol ...

          Yes Motoxxxx - I agree - and it's just the opposite of reading a newspaper ... we always start at the right side of the page ... funny eh ... If I concentrate hard enough, I can beat the norm, and start in the middle, lol ....

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          • Bethers
            Major General & Forum Moderator

            • Feb 2006
            • 5224

            #6
            Re: How people scan pages...

            And for more information - the more you put on a "home" page - the better the chance of someone going into "overload" and missing most of it. (Somehow this is not true for one page, long, sales pages).

            Something else to be aware of - is people can't register a ton of different things - so you should be focusing on ONE or TWO things about yourself you want them to remember.

            You might not remember the actual cars for sale - but I'm betting most of you can tell what the focus for the last several months has been about Volvo cars (assuming their ads are similar worldwide). If you don't associate Volvo with safety - then you haven't seen the ads :) - and they build their business based on that.

            If everything you're saying are the same attributes that everyone else is saying about your product - find one attribute that you can shine on - and focus on (of course, that people are looking for) and go for it!
            Beth
            A Child's Palace - Pinata Palace - Moxie Enterprises

            SEO and Marketing Tools
            SEO - The Basics

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            • planet777
              First Lieutenant

              • Dec 2006
              • 181

              #7
              Re: How people scan pages...

              Nice post Bethers,

              yeah, ONE thing is the, er, thing... lol... great ads for eg always concentrate on only saying one thing... problems come in when the client wants to put everything and the kitchen sink in...

              Re the one page sales letters... yes, they are saying a lot but there is still only one THEME... even tho I am a copywriter etc I learned one hell of a lot from Maria Veloso's great book Web Copy that sells - one of the points she makes is not to have ANY distractions: just lead the client inexorably down to the payoff, lol.

              Another big point she makes is that 'sales web copy' has to not APPEAR like a sales pitch. Rather it should come across as editorial. Coz, most ppl on the net are not looking to buy, but R looking for information... which is why Moto's comment re his sales went up when he concentrated on Yahoo and MSN is interesting, coz most ppl use Google and they are NOT looking to buy... so you have to strive for no blatant advertising etc...

              Cheers

              Will
              A manual to help small-business owners . http://www.entrepreneurshipz.com

              Comment

              • motoxxx
                Major

                • Dec 2005
                • 343

                #8
                Re: How people scan pages...

                Funny, it seems that in the last week Google has taken a serious interest in several of my sites...

                I am sitting on 30 #1 positions for competitive keywords in MSN now and I have one site that is now on page one on Google for a hyper competitive search term (17,000 targeted searches per month and more that 8 million competeting pages and I am up to #9!) Pretty cool.

                I knew that if I didn't worry about Google and used MSN at first that Google will catch up at some point...I am now geting about 300 visitors per day on this site....
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                • planet777
                  First Lieutenant

                  • Dec 2006
                  • 181

                  #9
                  Re: How people scan pages...

                  Cool Moto!

                  Ya doin' good! It's an inspiration to those of us still languishing at #235 356 479 ... ha ha! :-

                  Cheers,

                  Will
                  A manual to help small-business owners . http://www.entrepreneurshipz.com

                  Comment

                  • motoxxx
                    Major

                    • Dec 2005
                    • 343

                    #10
                    Re: How people scan pages...

                    Keep at it Will. Your enthusiam will carry you far.
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                    • planet777
                      First Lieutenant

                      • Dec 2006
                      • 181

                      #11
                      Re: How people scan pages...

                      Hey Moto...

                      Thanks! if there's one thing that will help me succeed, it's PERSEVERANCE. I have found this whole business of setting up one's own website (I had a writer's website before, but had a guy doing that... for $$$!) really hard, all the ins and outs and technical mumbo jumbo, and this going wrong, and questions on that... but I just keep going, day after day after day... and it's starting to bear fruit, for eg, if you want check out my Resources page:



                      I've added 5 articles to the Diet section, and 5 to the Weight loss section (nothing for the other two yet, but watch this space, lol) I want to add 5 articles every day, so before long the Resources page will have a LOT of material!

                      I also figured out (with the patient help of Naval and Bethers!!!) how to create a page in its own window!! Which I'm now doing for all my articles! Wooooo hoooo! ha ha.......! :-

                      I'm also understanding more of what you mean by internal links, that point to other parts of your site. Let's say in one guy's article, he's talking about X. I know there's a ref. to X in another article somewhere else, say a Diet article has a link to Weight loss (one would expect, right? lol) - then you can editorialise, say: [this is also covered here - Ed.] Something like that. So you hyperlink to your OWN pages WITHIN your pages.

                      What I DON'T get is why internal linking is viewed by the SE's as significant? Making you more of a resource? At the end of the day, that's what they're trying to find out, I guess...

                      So as I say, if i ever succeed, it'll be due to Bulldog perseverance. Maybe I should put a pic of a bulldog up, not a cat! lol!

                      cheers & tks for help and encouragement,

                      Will
                      PS I see the spiders are visiting me every 2nd day... nice... also that my ranking on Alexa used to be 5 million something... now 1.8 million... yeah, yeah, I know it's still dismal but I hope to be rapidly closing the gap... lol :-
                      A manual to help small-business owners . http://www.entrepreneurshipz.com

                      Comment

                      • motoxxx
                        Major

                        • Dec 2005
                        • 343

                        #12
                        Re: How people scan pages...

                        Will, you have the right idea about the resource page now. Now make it look like the rest of your site.

                        I know what you mean about being a bulldog. Sometimes I am too much of a bulldog and don't know when to say enuff is enuff!
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                        • planet777
                          First Lieutenant

                          • Dec 2006
                          • 181

                          #13
                          Re: How people scan pages...

                          Hey Moto,

                          tks ... I wanted to create a different look for the resource area and articles (in fact, ALL the non-home pages) - kinda liked the aqua color, and also quite frankly the idea of doing all the mumbo jumbo again of creating a border and "Push to back" or whatever the wording is...put me off... man... thought I'd keep it simple! LOL!

                          Anyone else have any comments about the change of aesthetics from home page to Resources => articles? Border and blue to non-border and aqua? It doesn't stick in my craw so I was wondering... :-

                          A bulldog and enuff is enuff? Ruff, ruff! lol.

                          cheers

                          Will
                          A manual to help small-business owners . http://www.entrepreneurshipz.com

                          Comment

                          • Bethers
                            Major General & Forum Moderator

                            • Feb 2006
                            • 5224

                            #14
                            Re: How people scan pages...

                            Personally,
                            The resources pages look non-professional to me as they are now - they don't match the site and appear as I see many do that don't know how to build a site.

                            And, they don't have a link back to your home page/actual site - which I'd like to see your headline at the top of this page - and the box - and center it.

                            You made your sales letter look professional - I'd like this to also.
                            Beth
                            A Child's Palace - Pinata Palace - Moxie Enterprises

                            SEO and Marketing Tools
                            SEO - The Basics

                            Comment

                            • motoxxx
                              Major

                              • Dec 2005
                              • 343

                              #15
                              Re: How people scan pages...

                              Will, I second everthing Bethers just said. You have the right idea, you just need to complete it. The idea is that you use a template of your main page to create all of the other pages for your site. It is very easy and much faster to just clone your index page. Every page on your site should have links to all of the most important pages on your site using descriptive anchor text.

                              Decide what pages you want to have for your site (index, contact, about us, resources, testimonials, etc) and place those links on your index page.

                              Now go up to File>New Page>Clone Page>select your index page. It will come up as index_clone. Delete all of themain page content accept for the header and the links at the bottom of the page. Go into the properties and set your "Author" tag to whatever you want it to say. I resave this page as TEMPLATE (in caps so I can find it easier) Now you have a template for adding new pages to your site and a platform for placing the new articles on. Now every time you add another page or article, you are adding backlinks to your most important site pages.

                              Take the time to figure out what names of pages you really want to have as the main pages for your site and save them with descriptive keywords. If you plan this out well, you won't need to go back and redo it every couple of weeks. You'll just continute to add pages and your site can grow and become a money making machine!
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