Here are 3 key concepts for conversion rate optimizers who want to design elegant, persuasive online experiences that make money:
Key Concept #1 – The 80/20 Rule remains a powerful force in the universe. Pareto’s principle never goes away…ever. It just continues to recur in everything, all the time. Bow to its power! The takeaway from Jakob Nielsen’s report is that, while users are more willing to scroll ‘below the fold’ than they used to be, the area above the fold still gets 80% of the time spent looking at a page. See the chart for the eerie split at 80.3% and 19.7%!
Key Concept #2 – The concept of keeping key content and call(s) to action ‘above the fold’ is still important. But, if you expect users to scroll below the fold, you’d better make sure the page has good scent so they know that relevant content awaits them if they do use their scroll bar.
Key Concept #3 – The bottom of every page is key. Note in Nielsen’s chart that the time spent fixating below the fold remains very low until the very bottom of pages. This is due to users looking for the bottom of the page’s container. It’s a bit grainy, but look at the screenshot of a gaze plot where the orange bar that is the active window’s bottom border gets the last fixation on the page. The user looks for the bottom, finds it, then knows they need to either click something or scroll back up. This presents an opportunity to place call(s) to action at the bottom of tall pages that necessitate scrolling, especially catalog pages with many products. Maybe it’s a place to experiment with primary and/or secondary calls to action?
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