Find the “fold” in your website design
Perhaps you’re already familiar with the newspaper terms “above the fold” and “below the fold.” If not:
“Above the fold” is a graphic design concept that refers to the location of an important news story or a visually appealing photograph on the upper half of the front page of a newspaper. Most papers are delivered and displayed to customers folded up, meaning that only the top half of the front page is visible. Thus, an item that is “above the fold” may be one that the editors feel will entice people to buy the paper. (Wikipedia)
“Below the fold” (as you may have guessed) refers to the bottom half of the page.
These terms have carried over onto the web.
Online, “above the fold” refers to what the viewer can see without scrolling down. In order to entice visitors to stay on your website, it’s important to make sure you put your best content above the fold. Web designers must consider where the fold falls when creating their design and owners should plan their content accordingly.
Awareness of where the fold falls on your homepage is crucial, but since visitors can enter your website on any page, it’s an important consideration across your entire website.
But, since visitors use different size monitors and have them set to various screen resolutions…
How can you tell where the “fold” is on your website?
Well, the easy way is to view your website (or any website) on www.whereisthefold.com.
You’ll get a screenshot showing the page design with horizontal lines and shaded boxes super-imposed on top, showing where different browser sizes cut off. There are also numbers indicating the percentage of people who use that size browser.
Pretty nifty! (Click images to view larger website screenshots)
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