“It’s right at the top of the page.”
How many times have I had this exchange when I am trying to tell someone how to find our newest service? It’s a Free SEO Scorecard that tells you exactly how your site performs on a wide array of benchmarks.
“It’s on this page! Go back to the top.”
If you provide the web addresses of your competitors and a few of the keywords you are trying to rank well for this document is an essential road map for your Internet Marketing plan, which for many begins with Search Engine Optimization.
As a side note I am thinking about calling it GEO since Google is the one that matters the most, yet we continue to act like the much smaller players are as important.
But my main point is one of usability. In the half dozen or so usability exercises I have done, I notice over and over that when someone goes to a new site they have never seen before, they automatically scroll down a little bit, assuming that the only thing at the top of the page is some kind of unessential banner ad or something.
And we always talk about designing so that all the most important information is “above the fold” (which in itself is pleasantly anachronistic). Watch for yourself sometime how it happens.
But what are the implications of this innocent gesture on the most artfully executed web designs? Should I tell my clients and designers not to put important information at the top of the page?
Clearly the most important element of design when it comes to usability has to be the focus on the middle of the page not the upper periphery.
