Controlling Your Visitors Eyes

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What is really unfair is that these eyes judge your site on very little information. Quite literally, your site is like that book that everyone is judging by its cover – and if the first impression is not appealing, you will lose your visitor within a few seconds.

It has always been widely known that people judge websites quickly, but it was only recently that this judgment was determined to occur in less time than it takes for you to blink an eye. This should, however, come as no surprise. As people living in an information-saturated age, it is quite natural for us to disseminate the information we see as quickly as possible so that we do not waste time on something that we do not care about.

It is for this reason that you need to control your visitors eyes. It is your job, when putting your website together, to do so in a way that helps your visitors quickly determine what your website is about, and also draws them in to your website to learn more about you. In a word, it is your job to make the cover of your book interesting enough that they open it up – at least to the table of contents.

Feature Something – Anything!

When a user comes across a website (especially a new website) they are looking to see whether or not that website appropriately matches what they were looking for. Essentially, what they are really looking for is a quick summary of what the site is about, and they do not want to have to look far for that summary. For the most part, if a user is not able to determine what a site is about within a few seconds, they will not bother spending a few more seconds to see if they can figure it out. However, if they do find that summary, and if it intrigues them, they will venture further into your website.

So do your visitors a favor and tell them immediately what your website is about. If you sell electronics, feature one of your products on the front page in a hotspot – this will tell them that you deal with electronics. If you specialize in debt reduction, choose the best hotspot on your page to convey this message. If your specialty is publishing Internet marketing articles (ala Site Reference), give them an article with an attention grabbing headline to look at in a featured area that will draw your users eyes.

One of the greatest mistakes you can make on your website is to have a busy website without giving your visitors a starting point on the homepage to work from. When creating your featured spot, keep in mind that eyes are drawn to larger font, different colored font, areas that are set apart by a border or placed in a hotspot on the page (more on this later).

Learn Website Hotspots

Most websites follow a standard layout. Although occasionally a website will surface that tries a variation on the standard layout, most websites can be counted to have some navigation at the top of the page and/or additional navigation flanking the main content on the left or right, with the body of the content taking up the center of the page. Regardless of how this became the standard layout, users now have come to expect this basic layout or some variation on it. This is good for you as it can help you identify the hotspots on your website.

Google did a favor for all website owners when they released their hotspot map. Now originally this map was created to help website owners know where they should place ads for the highest clickthrough rates. Not surprisingly, though, these hotspots are the same places that receive the most attention from the human eye. And that is the goal – to find the places on your website that your visitors will first look.

Typically the first place that visitors will look on your website will be in the main content portion of your page, and usually towards the top. Using visual cues (as we discussed in featuring something) is a great way to help guide your visitors to the hotspot.

Create a Quick Message That Sells

If you have ever attempted to write an article, you will quickly learn that one of the most single important aspects of your article is your headline. The headline is the first thing that people read, and if the headline succeeds in boring them, then they will certainly not venture into the rest of your article.

A website is very much like an article, with the an exception being the amount of control you have over the visual presentation of your website. The headline of an article should sell your potential reader – it should prod them, tease them, promise them what they are going to learn. Over and over again headlines that sell a central message in a stimulating way lead to the article being read.

This is probably no surprise to you, but your website needs to have a headline – and I am not talking about just setting your title tag. Your website needs to have a central message that conveys a message, that prods your potential reader, promises them answers for their questions, and brings them from the point of asking “Is this the website I was looking for” to a point of “I think this website might be able to help me”.

Of course, using the visual queues of hotspots and featured areas on your website, you can draw your users eyes to this message.

Using Images

The web is primarily a visual resource. We use our eyes to read, to navigate, and to make judgments about a website. Using images within your website to attract a users attention can be a great help in not only making your website more attractive, but controlling your users eyes and enticing them to explore your site more.

If given the option between a text message and an image, more often than not, a user will first look at the image. Images entice users because they have the unique ability to convey so much information while asking the user to do so little work. They appeal to visitors and have the unique ability to not only instill confidence, but convey feelings of trust, security, professionalism, and reliability.

If you are not convinced at the ability of selling a product without using words, consider the marketing campaigns of Coca Cola. Coca Cola is famous for sensationalizing their marketing. They do not bother trying to tell you that Coke is the product you want, rather they show you that Coke is the product you want through images.

When using images on your website, however, be sure to keep the message simple. Using a short phrase to supplement an image or graphic is a great way to deliver your message in a quick and efficient manner. Clarity is the goal, and with most websites an image or graphic alone will not be enough, but an image or graphic can give your website that extra push.

The Two Second Test

If you want to find out how well you are controlling your visitors eyes, try this simple test. You can do this on your own, but it is much more effective if you find someone else who has never seen your site before.

Sit down at your computer and fire up your web browser. Go to your website, and let yourself approach the site as a user would approach the site. It is essential that you do not look at your website as the person who created it, but rather look at your website as if you have never seen it before. After just 2 seconds (the site does not have to load fully), shut down the browser. If someone else is looking at the site, dont tell them that you are going to shut down the browser, just do it.

What were your impressions of your site? If you were a user who knew nothing about your website, what impression would you walk away with? Do you know what the site is about? Did it look professional? Did you trust the website initially? Where were your eyes drawn?

If you found that within the first two seconds of viewing your own website that you spent your time trying to find where your eyes should go to get an idea of what the site is about, then you have some work to do. If you are honest with your approach, the answers to the questions asked above should tell you a lot about what you need to do with your website.

A Final Note About Splash Pages

With all this talk about hotspots, featuring content, and delivering a quick message, it might be tempting to travel back to 1999 and put up a splash page. A splash page is a pre-home page, usually providing no real information and usually graphics heavy. In the past it was common to create a flash animation that would play whenever someone would come to a website to deliver a quick message about the website.

Lest there be any confusion on this topic, Ill make this as clear as possible. Splash pages on todays Internet are never, ever acceptable. I cannot think of a single instance in which having a splash page would be more desirable than delivering your message through a standard front page. If you have a splash page right now, get rid of it – it is probably driving away more visitors than you know.

Websites with splash pages tend to not do as well in the search engines (mainly because of the lack of content on the front page as well as a lack of solid navigation) and tend to turn users away. A splash page effectively places a barrier between the your website and your visitors goal, which is to quickly determine whether your site is what they were looking for. In addition, a splash page is a near guarantee that any return visitor who is forced to go through the page over and over again will find that going through your site is more time consuming than it is worth.

Practice, Practice, Practice (and measure too)

Learning how to control your visitors eyes takes a lot of practice and experimentation. It can be quite surprising what attracts the human eye, and what works for one type of service may not work for another. Although there are broad rules that we can learn, there is no single model that is most efficient for all types of websites.

This is why its good to play around a little. Test out various arrangements on your site. Feature different messages. Play around with different colors to see how people react (color theory is a great way to control your users eye movements). Most importantly, measure your results by viewing your web statistics. Measure the impact that placing a link in a prominent place on your front page makes on that page, and learn how to measure what effect that has on your visitors.

Succeeding with a website requires that we answer our visitors needs – and we do so quickly with a message that promises them answers to what they are looking for. There is a lot of information on the Internet, the websites who deliver their message first are the ones that users will flock to.